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--:\'' »' 



AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

A CRITICAL STUDY OF THE POLICY OF THE UNITED 

TTATES WITH REFERENCE TO CHINA, JAPAN AND 

KOREA IN THE 19TH CENTURY 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 

ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 

TORONTO 



\>' 



AMEEICANS IN EASTEEN ASIA 

A Critical Study of the Policy of the United 

States with reference to China, Japan 

and Korea in the 19th Century 



BY 

TYLER DENNETT 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1922 

All Rights Reserved 



'Mz^m'i':i{^) 



PEiniED IN TBB UNITED STATES OJ- AMERICA 

■ USE 



Copyright, 1922, 

By the macmillan company. 

Set up and printed. Published November, 1922. 



Press of 

J. J. Little & Ives Company 

New York, U S. A. 



DEC 20 "22 



PREFACE 

The reader is entitled to some intimation as to what he 
may find in the following pages. 

This is a study of the origin and development of Ameri- 
can policy in Asia — in China, Japan, Korea, with passing 
attention to Siam, and the regions of the Indian and 
Pacific Oceans — in the 19th Century. It is an entirely 
fresh study, based on original records and documentary 
sources, the first book ever attempting to cover the entire 
field. In large measure the human interest and the pecul- 
iarly personal qualities of the record of Americans in Asia 
have been retained. The actors are permitted to speak for 
themselves in their own words. 

The viewpoint is from Washington, not from Tokio, or 
Peking. American relations with the separate^ nations of 
the East, with the Japanese, the Chinese, the Koreans, have 
developed not separately but as a unity which the student 
disregards at his peril. There has not been one policy for 
one country and another policy for another. The policy has, 
in principle, been the same; the results of the policy were 
different because the peoples were different. 

The tap-root of American poUcy has been not philan- 
thropy but the demand for most-favored-nation treatment. 
One frequently meets the assumption that the Open Door 
Policy was invented by John Hay and first applied in 1899. 
The Open Door Policy is as old as our relations with Asia.' 
It was pronounced in China as early as 1842, and the spirit 
of the policy is as old as the Declaration of Independence. 
The policy was not limited to Chinr It was enunciated on 
the coast of Africa in 1832, and was repeated in Japan and 
Korea many times before 1899. The policy had been so 
fully developed before 1869 when William H. Seward 



vi PREFACE 

retired from the Department of State, that no new principle 
has ever been introduced since that time. Neither Mr. Hay 
nor Mr. Hughes appears to have considered that they were 
creating anything new. 

How can most-favored-nation treatment be secured? 
This was the persistent question in the 19th as it will be 
throughout the 20th Century. In pre-treaty days at old 
Canton the American merchants obtained it by conciliation 
of the Chinese. Caleb Cushing sought to make it secure by 
treaty and by elaboration of the principle of extraterritorial- 
ity. Commodore Perry strongly advised the acquisition of 
territory. Anson Burlingame set out to secure it by agree- 
ments between China and the powers. Seward was willing 
to join in an almost unlimited cooperative policy with the 
powers against the Asiatic States. He even proposed a joint 
armed expedition with the French into Korea. His suc- 
cessors in oJSice steadily withdrew from cooperation with 
the European Powers and turned to cooperation with and 
support of Japan. At the time of the Sino-Japanese War 
it was the United States alone which stood between Japan 
and the intervention of the European powers before the 
conflict was over. The United States not only desired the 
open door, but it also sought the development of Asiatic 
States strong enough to be their own door-keepers. It 
wanted a strong East; the other powers did not. On this 
difference of policy cooperation between the United States 
and the other Western powers was wrecked. At the begin- 
ning of the McKinley Administration the American Gov- 
ernment was in a dangerous position of isolation. The open 
door was gravely threateiled. McKinley returned to the 
policy of territorial acquisition advocated by Perry. Then 
John Hay set out to restore the cooperative policy and 
found his model in Burlingame's method of- agreement be- 
tween the powers. Hay would have preferred an alliance 
with Great Britain, Japan and as many more powers as 
could have been brought to agree upon the open door and a 
strong East. Hay was a statesman fifty years, perhaps, 



PREFACE vii 

ahead of his tune, but there are many now hving who will 
some day witness the realization of Hay's dream. Indeed, 
in a measure it is already realized in the treaties of Wash- 
ington in 1922. 

In the 19th Century the issue in American policy in Asia 
was not the open door. That was never a question. The 
real issue was whether the United States should follow an. 
isolated or a cooperative policy to make sure of the open, 
door. An isolated policy was essentially belligerent. 
It inevitably led to a pitting of the United States against 
not one but all of the powers and against the Asiatic states 
as well. It was the isolation of 1897 following the wreck 
of the cooperative policy which forced the United States to 
retain the Philippines, just as the distrust of British and 
French designs in the fifties had led to the attempt of some 
loyal but misguided Americans to seek the appropriation by 
the United States of Formosa. As a matter of fact the 
American flag did fly over the principal port of the island for 
a year. Likewise today a wreck of the newly established 
cooperative policy would in the end lead to belligerency, 
and very likely to still further acquisitions of territory by 
the United States. Those who scoff at such a speculation 
will do well to study the past records. 

The maintenance of a cooperative policy is, therefore, 
so utterly important for the peace of the East and of the 
world, that it is well to turn one's attention to the records 
and study well why and where the cooperative policy failed. 
Such a study is quite as important for the Japanese, the 
French, the British and for the other peoples of the West 
as it is for Americans. Cooperation failed partly because 
Americans were poor cooperators, but not wholly for that 
reason. It also failed because other cooperating powers 
sought to wrest the power of that cooperation to serve their 
separate purposes. The present policy may easily be 
wrecked upon a similar reef. 

This study of the past is approached in no partisan 
spirit. The writer does not regard himself as an apostle of 



viii PREFACE 

peace, or of any other doctrine. He is mindful of the fact 
that there is something in the atmosphere of Asia which 
makes it very difficult for most people to see the half-tones. 
All has a tendency to appear very black or very white. The 
writer does not regard Great Britain as the benevolent 
-source from which all blessings flow, nor does he find the 
Englishman the arch mischief-maker of world politics. He 
regards the Japanese neither as innocent lambs nor ravening 
wolves. Least of all has he any desire to see created any 
alliance of powers for the exploitation of China which must 
remain for so many years the great unknown quantity in 
the world equation. But whether we like or trust each other 
or not we all have to live together in a world which is be- 
coming smaller every day — and we must either fight each 
other or cooperate. The basis of cooperation must be under- 
standing. In the following pages, therefore, the English- 
man, Continental, Chinese and Japanese as well as the 
American are invited to view the pictures of themselves as 
they appear in the American records. 

At the risk of incurring the dislike which attaches to all 
iconoclasts, the writer has aimed to record the facts as they 
are, mindful that they do not lead to verdicts which have 
long been accepted. The exultant, complacent boaster of 
his nation's virtue, whatever the nation, will not find this a 
satisfying source-book, not if he reads it through to the 
end. No nation, either of the East or of the West, has 
escaped the valid charge of bad faith. The guilt of all 
parties being clearly proven it has seemed profitless to con- 
tinue the discussion of guilt with a view to determining the 
relative degrees of wickedness. Each nation, the United 
States not excepted, has made its contribution to the welter 

rof evil which now comprises the Far Eastern Question. We 
shall all do well to drop for all time the pose of self-right- 
eousness and injured innocence and penitently face the 
^ facts. 

'^ Cordial relations between the United States, Japan and 
Great Britain are now constantly being rendered unstable 



PREFACE ix 

by the perpetuation of historical fictions which were created 
at some time in the past to justify a position not otherwise 
defensible, and then reiterated with such frequency as to 
give them the currency of inspired truth. It is hoped that 
the following pages, carrying as they do the documentary 
evidence for the statements made, will contribute towards 
the retirement of some of these fictions and also clear a 
path for honest dealing and franker understanding in the 
future. 

The proportions assigned to the various phases of this 
study would have been different had it been the purpose 
to survey the international relations of China, Japan and 
Korea with the Western powers. In the international 
relations of the East with the West the last thirty years of 
the century bulks larger than the preceding seventy years. 
In a review of American policy the reverse is true, and this 
fact has determined the proportions of this study. The 
creative period in the relations of the United States to 
Eastern Asia practically came to an end in 1868. The 
following thirty years were relatively barren in both Ameri- 
can enterprise and statesmanship. While the three very full 
closing years of the century may be claimed as the vestibule 
to a contemporaneous period which is not yet concluded, 
these years are equally the conclusion of an epoch and bring 
the cycle of policy back to a point of cooperation similar 
to that when William H. Seward retired from the Depart- 
ment of State and Anson Burlingame was launched upon his 
mission to the Western Powers. To follow the policies of 
the McKinley administration down through the recent years 
to the Treaty of Versailles and the Treaties of Washington 
would be to enter upon a discussion where speculation and 
hearsay evidence would have to be substituted at impor- 
tant points for documentary facts. This period hab already 
been traversed by many excellent writers and it has there- 
fore seemed wiser to bring this study to a close with a state- 
ment of the initial policies of the McKinley administration 



X PREFACE 

and a comparison of them with the precedents of the pre- 
ceding century. 

Some of the material which appears in the following 
chapters has already been published in different and more 
elaborate form in the Journal of International Law (Jan. 
1922), and in the American Historical Review (Oct, 1922), 
while several of the chapters, now much revised, were orig- 
inally printed for the use of the American Commissioners in 
the Conference on the Limitation of Armaments and the 
Problems of the Pacific, but never released for general 
circulation. 

Bibliographical footnotes in a most abbreviated form have 
been inserted wherever the subject matter appears of suf- 
ficient importance to require them, or where the statements 
in the text are at variance with those which have appeared 
in other works on the subject. The student who cares pri- 
marily for the sources of history is recommended to read 
first of all Chapter XXXV, Notes on Bibliography, where 
the source material for the entire field is reviewed. 

Acknowledgments to writers of books and pamphlets 
which have proved of value in the preparation of this work 
appear in Notes on Bibliography (Chapter XXXV) and in, 
the bibliographical index. In addition to these the author 
is under such obligation as only those who have been 
placed under a similar debt can fully appreciate to the fol- 
lowing: to the officials and attendants of the Library, the 
Bureaus of Appointment and of Rolls and Indexes of the 
Department of State, and of the Libraries of Congress, of 
the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, of Co- 
lumbia University, of the New York, Wisconsin, and Min- 
nesota Historical Societies, the Manuscripts Division of 
the New York Public Library, and the Missionary Re- 
search Library; to James Rankin Young for information 
about his distinguished brother, John Russell Young; to 
Murray Olyphant for data and literature concerning his 
famous grandfather, D. W. C. Olyphant; to Hon. Charles 
Denby for helpful suggestions about the period in China 



PREFACE xi 

when he served in the American Legation at Peking under 
his honored father; to Hon. Henry White for information 
drawn from the rich stores of his memory as Secretary of 
the American Embassy at the Court of St. James; to Dr. 
J. Frankhn Jameson, Editor of the American Historial 
Review, for encouragement and suggestions, and especially 
for securing from His Excellency, J. Jules Jusserand, copies 
of important dispatches contained in the archives of the 
French Embassy at Washington, and to Waldo G. Leland 
for securing the copy of a document from the Ministry of 
Foreign Affairs in Paris; to Drs. Stanley K. Hornbeck, A. L. 
P. Dennis, Henry W. Wriston, and to Gaillard Hunt for 
many such helpful suggestions and counsel as comes from 
frequent conversations with those who have given their lives 
to a study of phases of the subject embraced in this volume; 
to many friends scattered over Eastern Asia and Eastern 
Africa from Tokio to Bombay and Cape Town who have 
offered a ready and never-failing hospitality to a tired trav- 
eler; and, finally, to Nelson Trusler Johnson, Edwin Lowe 
Neville and Baron Serge A. Korff who have been patient 
and kind enough to read the manuscript critically. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Pebfacb ? V 

PART I. THE EAST INDIA TRADE 

CHAPTER 

I. The Beginnings of American Commerce 1 

The American Ports. The Vessels Employed. Crews, 
Captains and Owners. Cargoes. 

II. The Ports of Asia and the Pacific 24 

Isle de France and India. Adventures — Mocha, Su- 
matra, Siam. Batavia and Manila. The Fur Trade. 
The Northwest Coast. 

Ill, Early China Trade 44 

Macao, Whampoa and Canton. Conditions of Ameri- 
can Trade. The Americans and the British. The 
Human Element in the Trade. Major Samuel Shaw. 

PART II. THE FIRST TREATY WITH CHINA 

IV. The Foundations of American Poucy in Asia .... 69 
Review of Trade: 1815-1839. Relation of U. S. Gov- 
ernment to American Citizens in China. Relations with 
Portuguese and English. Relations with the Chinese 
Government. Terranova Incident. 

V. The Americans and the Anglo-Chinese War .... 91 
Foreigners Imprisoned in the Factories. The Ameri- 
cans Petition Congress. Congress Becomes Interested. 
Commodore Kearny's Most-Favored-Nation Agreement. 
The Mission Created. 

VI. The American Share in the Opium Trade 115 

Turkey and India Opium. Conflict with Chinese^r- 
the Pledge. Commodore Kearny's Action. 

VII. Preparation for the Gushing Mission 128 

The Edmund Roberts Mission. Webster Consults the 
Merchants. Instructions to Gushing. Caleb Gushing 
Goes to Macao. 

VIII. The Policy of Caleb Gushing 145 

The Negotiations. The Immediate Application of 
the Principles of the Treaty. Superior Advantages of 
the Gushing Treaty. Extraterritoriality. Responsi- 
bility Placed on the Chinese. Divergence from British 
Policy. 



XIV 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 

IX. 



X. 
XI. 

XII. 
X XIII. 

Xxiv- 

XV. 
XVI. 



PART III. A PERIOD OF CONFUSION 

PAGE 

The Far East Becomes a Political Question .... 175 
The International Situation. Multiplication of Amer- 
ican Interests in China. Commissioners and Consuls. 

Settlement op the Shanghai Land Question .... 194 
Early American in Shanghai. American Protests 
against Exclusive Concessions. The Municipal Code. 
Final Settlement of a Vexed Question. 

Humphrey Marshall and the Taiping Rebellion . . 206 
Growth of the Rebellion. The Dilemma Presented 
to the Foreigners. Marshall Becomes Suspicious of 
British Designs. Shall Shanghai Become a Free Port? 
Marshall Forces Dissolution of Provisional System. 

The Policy op Commissioner McLanb 225 

The Inspectorate of Maritime Customs. McLane 
Settles the American Claims. Treaty Revision. Mc- 
Lane and Bowring Go to the Pei-ho. 

Attempts to Open Japan to Trade 242 

Japan and Early Pacific Trade. Edmund Roberts 
and Japan. Visit of the Morrison, 1837. Revival of 
American Interest in Japan. European Powers and 
Japan. 

Commodore Perry's Policy 260 

Instructions. Negotiations and Treaty. Perry's Pro- 
posals for Far Eastern Policy. 

The Policy of Dr. Peter Parker — Formosa 279 

Treaty Revision — Destruction of Barrier Forts. An 
American Protectorate for Formosa. Disavowal by the 
American Government. 



The Buchanan Administration and the Far East . 

Increase of American Prestige under Pierce. Ebbing 
Distrust of Great Britain. Proposals for an Alliance 
with Great Britain and France. Instructions to William 
B. Reed. 



292 



PART IV. THE COOPERATIVE POLICY 

XVII. William B. Reed and the Treaty op Tientsin .... 311 
The Treaties of Tientsin. The Revised Tariff — 
Legalization of the Opium Trade. Settlement of Claims. 

XVIII. Ward and Tattnall — Exchange of Ratifications . . . 333 
The Conflict Renewed. "Blood is Thicker than 
Water." The American Minister Goes to Peking. 

%• XIX. The Poucy of Townsend Harris in Japan 347 

. Appointment of Townsend Harris — Instructions and 
Treaty with Siam. Arrival of Harris in Japan — Con- 
vention of 1857. Harris at Yedo. Treaty and Tariff 
of 1858. 



CONTENTS 



XV 



CHAPTER PAGE 

y XX. Anson Burungame 367 

The Suppression of the Taiping Rebellion. Burlin- 
game and Cooperation. The First Chinese Mission — 
Treaty of 1868. The Burlingame Mission in Europe 
and China. 

< XXI. The United States and Japan : 1858-1869 391 

/ Anti-foreign Agitation. Convention of 1866. 

Y XXII. Seward's Far Eastern Policy 407 

Seward, Budingame and China. Coercion of Japan. 
Alaska and Korea. Proposed Joint Expedition to Korea. 

PART V. THE RISE OF JAPAN 

/ XXIII. First Steps in Japanese Expansion 425 

The Politically Nebulous East. The Japanese Em- 
pire Begins Consolidation. Japan on the Verge of 
War. Formosa, the Lew Chews and Korea. 
■if XXIV. The United States and Korea — Treaty of 1882 . . . 450 
Expediency of Disturbing the Status Quo. The 
United States Inclines Towards Japan. Shufeldt and 
the Good Offices of Li Hung Chang. The Personal 
Views of Commodore Shufeldt. 

■^ XXV. Beginning of the Contest for Korea 466 

Japanese Advance. China and Great Britain Are ♦ 

Aroused. Korea, 1885-1894. 
" XXVI. American Good Offices — SiNO-jAPANESEi War .... 489 
American Mediation in the Franco-Chinese War, 
1883-1884. Good Offices of the United States in Korea. 
Korea after the Peace of Shimonoseki. 

XXVII. Treaty Revision 508 

Revision in China by Interpretation and Agreement. 
Japanese Effort at Revision, 1872. Policy of Judge 
Bingham— Treaty of 1878. The Shufeldt Treaty with 
Korea. The Unratified Treaty of 1889. Treaties of 
1894. 

PART VI. THE DISINTEGRATION OF THE CHINESE 

EMPIRE 

;<; XXVIII. Asiatic Immigration and American Foreign Pjolicy . .. 535 

The Coolie Traffic. Chinese Labor in California. 
Treaties of 1868 and 1880. Growth of 111 Feeling. The 
Threat of Japanese Immigration. 
XXIX The Missionaries and American Policy in Asia . . . 555 

Missionaries as Diplomatic and Consular Officers. The 
Status of Missionaries under the Treaties. Missionaries 
and Neutrality. Persecution of Christians in China. 
XXX. American Trade: 1844-1898 .......... 578 

Decline of American Shipping. Foreign Advisors in 
China, Japan and Korea. Foreign Concessions at the 
Treaty Ports. Telegraphs and Cables. The First Rail- 
ways. Railway Construction in China after 1885. 
Spheres of Influence. 



i..-"' 



XVI 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

XXXI. Hawaii and the Philippines 607 

The Annexation of Hawaii. Suspicion of Japanese 
Designs in Hawaii. The Philippines in the Spanish- 
American War. Peace Negotiations with Spain. De- 
bates on Hawaii and the Philippines. Significance of 
Senate Approval of Treaty of Paris. 

XXXII. The Reassertion of the Open Door Policy 634 

The Far East in 1899. Overtures for an Alliance. 
John Hay and the Open Door Notes. What was Ob- 
tained? 
XXXIII. The United States and the Boxer Insurrection . . . 650 
The Boxer Insurrection. The Desires of the Ameri- 
can Government. Independent or Concurrent Action. 

Personalities and Principles 669 

The Consular and Diplomatic Service. The Contribu- 
tors to American Policy. The Cooperative Policy. 
Notes op Bibliography 682 

Bibliography 695 

Appendix 705 

Table of Presidents, Secretaries of State, and of 
Diplomatic Representatives in China, Japan and Korea, 
1842-1900. 

Index 709 



/ 
V XXXIV. 



XXXV. 



PART I 
THE EAST INDIA TRADE 



CHAPTER I 

THE BEGINNINGS OF AMEEICAN COMMERCE 

American policy in Asia has been a development of the 
policy of early Americans — those pioneers who crossed the 
seas and sometimes set up their habitations on what were to 
the western world the frontiers of the East. To understand 
the policy in its later amplifications and applications it is 
very important to know something of the early trade and 
the conditions under which it was accomplished. 

The term 'East India Trade' itself belongs to the genera- 
tion which immediately followed the close of the American 
Revolution. One finds it in the literature of the day and in 
the speeches in Congress. The use of the term is important. 
The Americans viewed Asia as a whole and called it the 
East Indies. The trade so described included all the com- 
liherce the destination or origin of which lay in either the 
Indian or western Pacific oceans. There was not, for 
example, at the time Adam Seybert wrote (1818) any one 
section of the trade so conspicuous as to overshadow other 
parts; the Calcutta, Sumatra, Northwest Coast and Canton 
trade stood side by side. They were all more or less related 
to each other and interdependent and, in turn, were all so 
much a part of the South American, West Indian and 
European commerce that the separate trade reports can 
never be untangled. The East India trade was merely a 
part of the fabric of the foreign commerce of the United 
States, and yet it was conducted under certain distinctive 
and unique conditions, political and economic, which gave 
rise to separate policies. Even the earliest American 
traders had to have a policy in Asia and the policy which 
necessity as well as wisdom dictated became the foundation 
of subsequent policies adopted by their government. Mod- 



4 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

I ern American policy in Asia is largely a body of precedents 
' which have accumulated from decade to decade since the 
close of the war of the American Revolution. These pre- 
cedents have a remarkable consistency due in large measure 
to the unchanging geographical and slowly changing 
economic and political conditions under which American 
trade with Asia has been conducted. 

This trade may best be understood when one visualizes, 
the scenes of the activities — the economic condition of the 
colonies at the close of the Revolution, the ships, their 
owners, officers and crews, the departure from the Atlantic 
seaboard, the barter for goods, the return cargoes, and the 
life of those who tarried for a few years in the Eastern 
ports. 

Previous to the Revolution the American colonists knew 
of Asia only through the tea which found its way to such 
ports as Boston harbour, or was smuggled in from Holland ; ^ 
through the small amount of expensive silks and the larger 
amount of Chinese and Indian cottons which wore well; and 
through the tales of the pirates who seventy-five years 
earlier had stalked through the streets of their ports.^ At 
the close of the war we cannot call by name more than 
one or two native born Americans who had ever been on 
the coasts of Asia, and in 1784 probably there were not a 
half dozen people on all the Atlantic seaboard who had any 
first hand knowledge whatever of the other side of the 
world. Where the first charts came from by which the' 
American vessels sailed to the East is a mystery . 

In the last Captain Cook expedition to the Pacific, which 
left England in July, 1776, and returned in 1781, were two 
Americans, John Gore of Virginia and John Ledyard of 
Connecticut.^ They were the first lieutenant and corporal 
of the marines, respectively, on the Resolution. Of Gore 
nothing else is known, but Ledyard's service to his country 
was considered in later years of sufficient importance to 
merit the attention of Jared Sparks, the biographer of 
Washington. Ledyard had entered Dartmouth College in 

^ Small numerals in text and notes refer to bibliographical references at ends 
of chapters. 



THE BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE 5 

1772 to prepare himself to be a missionary to the Indians, 
but had retired after a few months to go to sea. Working 
his way back to America in the British navy, he deserted in 
1782 and made his way home to Connecticut for a brief 
period, and then ordained himself a missionary to American 
merchants to convert them to trade with Asia, the limitless 
possibilities of which had been impressed upon him when 
he had seen fur^skins,_purchased on the Northwest coast 
of America for a sixpence, and sold in Canton for $100. 

Ledyard urged the advantages of the trade upon mer- 
chants in New York, Philadelphia and Boston. At least 
twice he was within sight of success, once at New London, 
where the frigate Trumhell was actually engaged for the 
purpose and then diverted elsewhere, and also in New York 
where Daniel Parker was employed, presumably by Robert 
Morris of Philadelphia, to purchase a ship for a trial voyage. 
The ship was purchased, named the Empress of China,^ and 
sent to Canton in February, 1784, but Ledyard, whose zeal 
and enthusiasm did not qualify him, perhaps, for great 
responsibilities, was never permitted to carry out the great 
plans of which he was the author. 

Within the next four or five years we hear of certain 
Englishmen ^ who drifted to America after some years of 
experience in the East, but none of them appear to have 
been recognized as important assets in teaching the Ameri- 
cans the arts of the new trade. American trade with Asia 
was begun without the direct assistance of any others than 
Americans and made its way, needless to say, in the face 
of no inconsiderable opposition from British competitors, 
notably the East India Company, as well as with the bless- 
ing of a few Englishmen who welcomed any undermining 
of the East India Company monopoly. 

Of general causes leading to the initiation and develop- 
ment of the East India trade little need be said. This 
branch of the commerce of the new nation was merely a part 
of a lively expansive movement which burst the bounds at 
every possible point and spread over the face of the earth 
in search of produce, trade, capital and wealth. At the close 



6 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

of the Revolution there were idle ships just in from their 
privateering; there were sailors; there was a market 
in America for the produce of Asia, which had formerly- 
come in British vessels ; *^ and there was a market in China, 
as the Americans already knew from the pre-revolutionary 
trade, for at least one American product — ginseng, a root 
utilized by the Chinese in medicines/ Furthermore, there 
was the potent urge of poverty. As a non-manufacturing 
people, shut up in a limited area which was not producing 
many essential articles of diet, and impoverished by a costly 
war, the United States was as far as possible removed from 
economic self-sufficiency. The first Americans went to Asia 
because they had to go^they had to go everywhere. In 
later years, when this necessity was removed, they showed 
their preferences by electing to remain at home. 

The American Ports 

The American ports especially concerned in the East 
India trade were Salem and Boston, Providence, a few of 
the ports of Connecticut, New York, Philadelphia, Balti- 
more, and to a slight extent Norfolk. It is difficult to assign 
to each of these ports its exact relative place in the growing 
trade, for the relative positions were constantly changing, 
and each city, from Philadelphia north, possessed at some 
time or other its own peculiar eminence. To regard the 
trade as having in any way been limited to any single state 
is misleading. New York could claim the distinction of the 
first completed voyage ; Philadelphia, as was in accord with 
its wealth and population, had for a while the largest 
tonnage; Salem and Boston were distinguished for their 
ship owners; and eventually the trade showed a tendency 
to concentrate in the Port of New York, whither Massachu- 
setts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Mary- 
land sent their agents to buy and sell, irrespective of what 
state claimed ownership of the capital invested, or of the 
ships employed. 

The Empress of China was owned and fitted out jointly 
by Robert Morris of Philadelphia and a group of New York 



THE BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE 7 

merchants represented by the firm of Daniel Parker which 
went bankrupt in 1785. The captain was John Green, who 
had probably commanded a privateer in the Revolution. 
The supercargo was Major Samuel Shaw of Boston, who had 
served with distinction in the war and who, but for his 
untimely death in 1794 en route from China, would prob- 
ably have risen to eminence in the life of the young nation. 
The Empress of China left New York February 22, 1784, 
sailed directly to Canton and returned directly, arriving 
home May 12^785. She was furnished with the customary 
sea-letter with the rather inclusive introduction to the 
"most Serene, most Puissant, High, Illustrious, Noble, Hon- 
orable, Venerable, Wise and Prudent, Lords, Emperors, 
Kings, Republicks, Princes, Dukes, Earls, Barons, Lords, 
Burgomasters, Councillors, as also Judges, Officers, Justici- 
aries and Regents of all the good cities and places, whether 
ecclesiastical or secular, who shall see these patents or hear 
them read." ^ The cost of vessel (360 tons), the outfit, and 
the expenses of the voyage are reported to have been 
$120,000.*^ The cargo, what there was of it, consisted of 
something over forty tons of ginseng. The profits of the 
voyage were reported as $37,727 — in Major Shaw's estima- 
tion hardly enough to go around, and certainly very modest 
when compared with the reported profits of the expedition 
which followed. 

The return of the Empress of China created, neverthe- 
less, something of a sensation. To James Madison a cor- 
respondent ^'^ wrote: 

"I imagine you have heard of the arrival of an American vessel 
at this place in four months from Canton in China, laden with the 
commodities of that country. 

"It seems our countrymen were treated with as much respect as 
the subjects of any nation, i. e., the whole are looked upon by the 
Chinese as Barbarians,' and they have too much Asiatic hauteur to 
descend to any discrimination. Most of the American merchants 
here are of the opinion that this commerce can be carried on, on 
better terms from America than Europe, and that we may be able 
not only to supply our own wants but to smuggle a very considerable 
quantity to the West Indies. I could heartily wish to see the 
merchants of our state engage in the business. 



8 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

"Don't you think that an exemption from duty on all goods 
imported immediately from India in (American) bottoms to our state 
might have a good effect?" 

This agitation so soon begun for protection legislation 
for the China trade did not lapse. Both Pennsylvania and 
New York^^ adopted protective duties, and by 1791 the 
federal government had extended to the China trade such 
favors as now seem almost incredible when one comes to 
consider their value. The China traders not only enjoyed 
the protection of the navigation act of 1789 which imposed 
a discriminating tonnage tax of forty-six cents per ton on 
foreign bottoms, and the protection of the tariff act of the 
same year which gave to the American importer a 121/2 per 
cent, protection in duties on East India imports other than 
tea, and on tea a protection which absolutely excluded im- 
portation in any but American bottoms; but they also en- 
joyed the special favor of a warehousing system with draw- 
backs for reexportation and, most important of all, a two 
years' delay in the payment of tea duties.^" Tea duties 
equalled or exceeded the prime cost of the tea at Canton.^^ 
When one adds to these favors the liberal credits extended 
to the Americans in India and China it is not difficult to see 
why the trade prospered. 

The arrival of the Empress of China was followed shortly 
by that of the Pallas, with a cargo of $50,000 worth of 
teas taken by Thomas Randall, Shaw's partner and former 
companion in arms. The Pallas had been chartered at Can- 
ton and was commanded by Captain John O'Donnell, an 
Englishman and former Indian merchant who immediately 
became an American citizen and embarked upon the East 
India trade from Baltimore. Robert Morris took the cargo 
of the Pallas and became so enthused by the prospects of the 
China trade that he made a proposition to Shaw and Ran- 
dall to return to Canton as his agents. The terms, however, 
were not considered satisfactory. Morris followed up the 
trade from Philadelphia and the partners almost immedi- 
ately accepted an offer from a company of New York mer- 
chants. Shaw sailed again for Canton in 1786, planning on 



THE BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE 9 

this voyage to stop at Batavia. ''The terms on which I 
go," wrote Shaw to his brother, "promise something clever." 

At least nine voyages to the Far East, some of them to 
India but not to China, were initiated from New York be- 
fore the end of 1787. 

Two months before the Empress of China had sailed 
from New York the sloop Harriet (55 tons) had cleared 
from Boston, bound for Canton with ginseng. Nine months 
after the departure of the first New York venture the Grand 
Turk, belonging to Elias Haskett Derby, sailed from Salem 
for the Cape on a similar errand but with a more diversified 
cargo. Neither the Harriet nor the Grand Turk went far 
beyond Cape Town; the sloop secured her small return 
cargo out of the private ventures of the officers of the re- 
turning British Indiamen, but the Grand Turk with its 
larger cargo space did not succeed so well. 

"Captain Ingersoll's object," wrote Shaw, who found the Grand 
TurJc at the Cape on his return from Canton, "was to sell rum, 
cheese, salt provisions, chocolate, loaf-sugar, butter, etc., the proceeds 
of which in money, with a quantity of ginseng, and some cash brought 
with him, he intended to invest in Bohea tea. But as the ships bound 
to Europe were not allowed to break bulk by the way, he was dis- 
appointed in his expectation of purchasing that article, and sold his 
ginseng for two thirds of a Spanish dollar a pound. . . . He intended 
remaining a short time to purchase fine teas in the private trade 
allowed to officers on board the India ships, and then to sail to the 
coast of Guinea to dispose of his rum, etc., for ivory and gold dust; 
thence, without taking a single slave, to proceed to the West Indies 
and purchase sugar and cotton with which he would return to Salem." 

Captain Ingersoll assured Shaw that Derby would rather 
sink the whole capital employed than be directly or indi- 
rectly concerned in the 'infamous' slave traffic. 

Boston was relatively slow in following up the voyage of 
the Harriet, but Salem, especially through Derby who acted 
on information secured at the Cape by Captain Ingersoll, 
plunged boldly into the trade and soon had several ships 
in the Indian Ocean, many of which reached Canton. In 
1789 there were no less than ten Salem ships in and out of 
the Isle de France (Mauritius). Meanwhile Boston had 
sent out the Columbia and the Lady Washington to the 



10 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

Northwest coast (1788), and the Massachusetts trade with 
the Far East was well launched. The Bay State developed 
a good deal of individuality in the East India trade. It 
specialized to a greater degree than did the other ports, in 
certain branches, trading much with Mauritius, Calcutta, 
Madras, the pepper coast of Sumatra, and the Northwest 
coast of America. While the Massachusetts shipowners 
were also merchants, supplying their own markets, they 
were primarily interested in the carrying trade. Their 
vessels were, to use a modern term, 'tramp freighters.' The 
points at which they turned homeward were usually either 
Canton or an Indian Ocean port, but the voyage in either 
direction might include visits to half a dozen European 
ports, or several cities of South America. Freight rates 
ranged from $2.25 to more than $4 per ton per month. ^* 
Needless to say, the Massachusetts traders prospered. 

Philadelphia entered the trade directly in 1787, sending 
out at least five vessels, a total of over 1600 tons, or more 
than could be claimed in that year for all of the other 
ports together. The Philadelphia ship owners, Robert 
Morris excepted, were little given to explorations or experi- 
ments ; rather, they set to work to build up a fleet to supply 
their needs along established and proven routes, chiefly to 
Calcutta, Madras and Canton. The East India trade of the 
city quickly passed into the hands of a few substantial 
merchants of wealth like Stephen Girard and Samuel Archer 
who managed the trade in close conjunction with their 
wholesale or retail merchandising. In this class of trade 
Philadelphia retained its leadership more than twenty years, 
after which it was forced to yield gradually to New York. 

The trade of Providence was very similar to that of 
Philadelphia. It appears to have been better supplied with 
capital at the outset than either New York or Massachu- 
setts, but the growth of the trade was foredoomed to limita- 
tion because Providence was a poor distributing point. 
Before the war of 1812 Providence had already begun to 
withdraw its capital from the trade to devote it to the 
spinning industry.^ ^ 



THE BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE 11 

The Vessels Employed 

The fleets of the East India traders make a peculiar 
appeal to the imagination. One reads in their tonnage and 
in the records of their builders something of the economic 
history of the struggling young nation ; in their adventures, 
trials, failures and successes, something of the hardihood of 
the youthful American spirit. 

One cannot see without a thrill the departure of the 55- 
ton sloop Harriet, or of the not much larger sloop Experi- 
ment from Albany just two years later. The Harriet went 
only to the Cape, but the Experiment, carrying a crew of 
seven men and two boys, pushed on to China and returned 
in eighteen months with a cargo of tea, China-ware and 
other goods. In 1790 Captain Joseph Ingraham, formerly 
mate on the Columbia, who had already circumnavigated 
the globe, took a parting look at his native shore and then 
launched the Hope,^^ ''being only 70 tons & slightly built" 
into the bosom of the ocean for a voyage around the Horn 
to the Northwest coast. Thirteen months later Ingraham 
reached Macao with his cargo of pelts. And while he was 
there, in came the 90-ton Lady Washington with Captain 
John Kendrick from Nookta Sound, four years out of Bos- 
ton harbor. 

Such voyages as these were by no means exceptional. 
The Pilgrim, 62 tons, sailed from Boston on a sealing voy- 
age in the South Pacific in September, 1803, and four years 
later arrived at Canton with between twelve and thirteen 
thousand seal-skins. The schooner Rajah, built for the 
Sumatra pepper trade was only 130 tons, and carried a 
crew of only ten men. The voyage of the Betsey (93 tons) 
of New York in 1797-8 is notable. She went to the South 
Seas by way of Cape Horn, thence to Canton, and then back 
to New York by way of Good Hope, a voyage of twenty- 
three months. There was a crew of thirty, not one of whom 
was over twenty-eight years old. The net proceeds of the 
trip were in excess of $120,000, on an initial outlay for the 
cost of the vessel, outfit, insurance and interest of $7,867. 



12 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

After deducting the duties, the shares of the captain, the 
officers and the crew, and the capital invested, there was 
asserted to be a clear profit to the owners of $53,118 — on a 
twenty- three months trip of a 90- ton vessel! ^^ 

We are not to beheve that these tiny sloops, snows, 
brigantines, brigs and schooners were selected for the Pacific 
and China trade in preference to larger craft. Their use 
bears witness to the poverty of the traders and their lack 
of capital. As rapidly as wealth permitted the Americans 
built larger craft — from 250- to 300-ton vessels for the 
Pacific and circuituous routes, and slightly larger for the 
direct trade with India and Canton. With few exceptions 
there were no American vessels anywhere near 1000 tons in 
the East India trade until after 1840. Meanwhile the Amer- 
ican ship owner came to see that although the British ships 
of the day were ranging in size from 600 up to 1400 tons, 
American vessels of half their size and a third their crews 
were both safer and more economical for the East Indies. 
The largest American vessel at Whampoa in 1813 was 493 
tons; the smallest was 86 tons. The thirty-nine vessels 
which touched at Honolulu between February and May, 
1826, were of from 200 to 400 tons; ten years later at the 
same port the vesels averaged about 320 tons, and in 1842 
they ranged around 350 tons. The largest vessel at Batavia 
in the summer of 1834 was 465 tons.^^ 

The experience of Major Shaw with the Massachusetts 
built especially for him and launched at Quincy, September, 
1789, illustrates the experimental character of much of the 
early trade, and also throws some light on the spirit of the 
men engaged in it. 

Shaw, after a thorough investigation of the methods of 
trade used by the British and European companies in the 
East Indies inclined to the opinion that large ships were 
advantageous. 'The experience of nearly a century," he 
wrote in his journal after his return to China from India 
in 1786, "has convinced the Europeans of the utility of 
managing their commerce with this country by national 
companies and with large ships." Shortly after this Shaw 



THE BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE 13 

and his partner, Thomas Randall, drew up a contract with 
Eli Hayden "American merchant and supercargo of the 
brigantine Columbia, whereof is master Solomon Bunker, 
now riding at anchor at the port of Wharapoa and bound for 
New York," by which Hayden was to place an order in 
Massachusetts for a ship which would meet the needs of 
the case as Shaw understood them. The length of the keel 
was to be one hundred and sixteen feet, and the ship was 
to have "three decks, and a round house with a stern 
gallery from the round house, and a quarter gallery above 
and below, with thirty-two ports on her second deck and a 
forecastle on her upper deck." ^^ 

"With respect to the other dimensions and disposition of the 
ship," continued the contract, "those of the Worcester (an English 
ship now at Whampoa) are annexed to these presents, but it is under- 
stood by the parties to this contract and engaged by the said Eli 
Hayden that he will build the aforesaid ship agreeably to the models 
to be formed and given by the same (at the expense of Shaw and 
Randall) by the person who shall hereafter be appointed for that pur- 
pose ... it being further engaged that all the aforesaid and every 
other article which shall enter into the construction of the said ship 
previous to her being launched and delivered to said Shaw and 
Randall, or their assigns, in the water and after at the risque of said 
Eli Hayden, shall be well and truly the best, the very best quality, it 
being the true intent, spirit and meaning of the present contract that 
the said ship shall be built as well and as strong as wood and iron 
can make her." 

To William Hackett, of Salisbury, Massachusetts, who 
had built the Alliance, were entrusted the responsibilities of 
making the models and superintending the building of the 
ship. The instructions to him contained the following 
paragraph indicative of the national pride which character- 
ized very many of the China traders : 

"This ship is designed for the India trade, where ships from all 
nations meet and where probably the best ships the world can produce 
may be seen. It is the expectation of Messrs. Shaw and Randall that 
they can produce from America such a ship as will bear the inspection 
of the most critical eye, both as to construction and workmanship. 

The Massachusetts appears to have met the qualifica- 
tions. Both British and French naval commanders who 



14 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

were visiting in Boston in their national ships at the time 
of the launching expressed their admiration of the model of 
the vessel, and the Massachusetts was afterwards pro- 
nounced at both Batavia and Canton to be "as perfect as 
the then state of the art would permit." The vessel sailed 
from Boston in March, 1790, and her commander. Job 
Prince, afterwards reported to Hackett, her builder: 

"The ship Massachusetts surpassed our most sanguine expectations 
so that she met the approbation of all the Europeans at Canton. And 
though their eyes were open to spy defects and their tongues ready to 
find fault, they confessed that they could not." 

The report of Amasa Delano, second officer of the 
Massachusetts, sheds another light on the obstacles of ignor- 
ance and inexperience which the early Canton traders had 
to overcome before substantial success crowned their efforts. 
Delano stated: 

"The ship was as well built as any ship could be under the cir- 
cumstances. The timbers were cut and used immediately while 
perfectly green. It was white oak, and would have been very durable 
had it been docked and properly seasoned. . . . She was, however, 
rotten when we first arrived in China. She was loaded principally 
with green masts and spars taken on board in winter directly out of 
the water with ice and mud on them. The lower hold was thus filled, 
and the lower deck hatches caulked down in Boston and never opened 
until we were in Canton. The air was then found to be so corrupt 
that a lighted candle was put out by it nearly as soon as by water. . . . 
We had taken four or five hundred barrels of beef in the lower hold, 
placed in the broken stowage. When fresh air was admitted so that 
men could live under the hatches the beef was found almost boiled, 
the hoops were rotted and fallen off, and the inside of the ship was 
covered with a blue mould more than half an inch thick." 

And yet four or five decades later the Americans had 
learned how to carry even cargoes of ice over the same 
route and dispose of them from Calcutta to Canton at a 
profit. 

Major Shaw seized an opportunity to sell the Massachu- 
setts and invested his funds in a cargo which he was able to 
freight to Bombay. At the latter port he transferred part 
of the cargo to an American ship and took the balance in a 
Danish vessel to Ostend to be disposed of in the European 



THE BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE 15 

market. He is reported to have received $65,000 for his 
ship. If such were the truth his venture had by no means 
ended in disaster for it is unlikely that the Massachusetts 
cost more than $40,000 — $50 a ton. The sale of American 
built vessels in the ports of Asia was common in those days. 

Crews, Captains and Owners 

Of great interest to the student of the American policy 
in Asia is the character of the men who sailed these ships 
and represented the new nation in the ports of the East. 
They were good, average American-born citizens, recruited 
either from the sea-faring population or from the farms. 
As late as 1834, judging from various consular reports, the 
number of foreign born did not exceed twenty-five per cent., 
and in the first six months of that year, out of the 276 
sailors in 19 vessels which entered Manila, all but 25 were 
native born. Sailors on the sealing and fur-trading voyages 
had a share in the profits, and in the direct trade with Asia 
they often made small ventures of their own, buying cargo 
space in the ship in which they sailed. They had before 
them the possibility of either working up through the grades 
until they became masters of their own ships, as many of 
them did, or of accumulating enough capital to buy a farm 
or enter trade at home. The American sailors were there- 
fore quite unlike the crews of the British Indiamen, re- 
cruited from the dregs of English cities, which at Canton 
spread terror in their path, creating no end of trouble for 
the British authorities and even imperilling the continuance 
of the trade itself.^*' The early American sailor, be it ad- 
mitted, was also quite unlike his successor who appeared on 
the China coast after the opening of California. The Ameri- 
can sailor of the early fifties in China had all the vices of 
the earlier EngHsh sailor, plus initiative and a liberty. The 
character of the American sailor who appeared in the East 
in the early days was a distinct asset to American trade at 
a time when good will counted for much. He merited better 
treatment than he sometimes received. 



16 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

The American consul at Canton, shortly after the close 
of the War of 1812, reported ^^ that the American sailors 
adrift in Canton preferred service under almost any flag 
rather than their own. 

"It has often occurred," he wrote, "that the commanders of vessels 
which have been on long, tedious and laborious voyages, sometimes 
two or three years, particularly on the Northwest coast of America 
and the Pacific Ocean, illtreat and unnecessarily punish their seamen 
for the sole purpose of driving them to desert from their vessels, that 
they may forfeit their consular claim for wages, through which means 
they are driven to the necessity of entering into foreign service . . . 
this takes place particularly about the time of the arrival at this port, 
from which period as many seamen are not wanted to navigate the 
vessel to the United States or Europe, as were necessarily employed in 
the previous and more lucrative part of the voyage." 

The hazards of a sailor's life in those days were also 
formidable. Out of a crew of sixty-one which had sailed the 
Massachusetts to Canton in 1790, fifteen had in the course 
of years died either at Canton or en route, four were mur- 
dered at or near Macao, one contracted leprosy and one 
became a slave in Algiers. 

Of the ship masters it may be said that while some of 
them were hard drivers and merciless, they were on the 
whole an exceedingly able set of men, the type of the Ameri- 
can pioneer. Many of them were sons of ship-owning 
families, and many more were graduated into the ranks 
of the merchants and bankers of the next generation, while 
not a few owned their vessels and added to their holdings 
until they had a fleet of their own. One reads the tale of a 
Boston banker in the fifties who was reported, half a century 
before, to have commanded a ship from Calcutta to 
Boston "^ "with nothing in the shape of a chart on board but 
a small map of the world in Guthrie's geography." One 
may well question the accuracy of the details of this story 
and yet find in it a measure of truth. 

We may clearly distinguish three classes of owners. 
Many of the smaller vessels were owned and fitted out on 
shares. The six share-holders in the Columbia and the Lady 
Washington in their memorable voyage to the Northwest 



THE BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE 17 

coast and Canton were three Boston merchants, Charles 
Bulfinch the architect, a son of Elias Haskett Derby, and a 
New York merchant. There were many such expeditions. 
Another class was the large retail and wholesale merchants, 
particularly of Philadelphia and New York. They appear 
to have managed their voyages for their exclusive and 
individual interests; one does not find evidence that the 
small adventurer had any part in these enterprises. There 
were also the shipping companies, owned by individuals, by 
families, or by a group of individuals. The Derbys of Salem 
were of this class. They admitted a large number of small 
ventures which were managed by the supercargoes on a 
commission of 21/2 per cent and for which the owners paid 
either the regular freight charges or divided the profits with 
Derby. In the voyage of the Astrea in 1789, there were 
twenty-four of these private consignments."^ One man 
would send a few casks of ginseng, another a few boxes of 
''dollars," a third some snuff, and many sent wine or beer. 
In other instances the stock in these trading companies was 
rather widely distributed. In 1814 the firm of Oliver Wol- 
cott and Company of New York reported sixteen individuals 
as having a total stock of $405,000 in the China trade. 
Among the share-holders were William Rhinelander, Rufus 
King, Archibald Gracie and Eli Whitney.^^ 

The early trade had in it a large element of speculation. 
The price of tea fluctuated greatly and the market was fre- 
quently glutted. The trade in Indian fabrics and in silks 
was steadier but even under the best of market conditions 
the trade was hazardous. A full cargo in a four or five 
hundred ton ship was valued at from three to five hundred 
thousand dollars. Wrecks were not uncommon, insurance 
was high, and there were few men in the United States at 
the beginning of the last century who could lose any large 
amount of money and remain solvent. Following the War 
of 1812 there was a period of intense speculation ending in 
very extensive failures. In 1825 one Philadelphia house 
failed -^ owing the government nearly $900,000 in unpaid 
duties. This failure carried others with it and not long 



18 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

afterwards a New York house failed for $3,000,000. During 
the third decade of the century one of the wealthiest of the 
Boston firms claimed hardly to have made the interest on 
the money invested. 

After the War of 1812 the trade showed a marked tend- 
ency toward concentration in the hands of a few firms. It 
was stated that in 1825 seven eighths of the China trade 
was conducted by four'firms: Messrs. Perkins and Company 
of Boston; Archer who was connected with the Browns of 
Liverpool, Jones, Oakford and Company of Philadelphia; 
and Thomas H. Smith of New York. In 1829 one half of 
the entire trade was said to be in the hands of the house of 
Perkins. The day of the small trader had not entirely 
passed but a few merchants had a very great advantage. 
The pioneer days were over but they had served a most 
useful purpose in American industrial and commercial de- 
velopment. The "merchant prince" had appeared at Can- 
ton but at the same time many an American at home had 
withdrawn from the China trade with sufiicient capital to 
serve his needs as he entered into the new industrial life 
of the nation. The importance of the early China trade is 
to be gauged not so much by the net trade returns for each 
year as by the fact that it offered a means for the accumula- 
tion in a few years of a large amount of capital of which 
the rapidly growing states were in urgent need. 

Cargoes 

The outward cargoes of the East India traders present 
an interesting study. 

The first American merchants went to the East not so 
much to sell as to buy. The East Indian trade arose out of 
no notable demand in the United States for a market for 
surplus produce, but rather out of a desire to secure for the 
United States certain commodities such as Indian muslins, 
spices, Chinese teas and silks for which there was a demand. 
The East was economically self-sustaining; it required 
nothing from the West. The problem of exchange thus 



THE BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE 19 

created was the most serious obstacle which the American 
merchant had to meet. What could he take to Asia to give 
in exchange for the produce which he required? 

Fortunately for the American the acceptable articles of 
exchange in the various ports from Mauritius to Canton 
were varied. There were, scattered across Asia, considerable 
settlements of white men who were dependent in part for 
the satisfaction of their needs, both personal and industrial, 
upon commodities which had to be carried to Asia from the 
West. The Americans seized upon this trade with avidity. 
The native markets in each country would absorb certain 
articles which the United States produced, or which the 
American merchant could collect en route to the East. 
Hence the advantage of the circuitous trading. A vessel 
might start for Canton with farm produce or with flour. 
At some European or Mediterranean port this cargo would 
be exchanged for a cargo for Mauritius, or India or else- 
where. Sometimes there would be three or four exchanges 
of commodities before the ship reached Canton. 

The way in which the Americans attempted to solve this 
formidable problem of exchange may best be seen in some of 
the old manifests. The Grand Turk of Salem carried as 
outward cargo in 1785: pitch, tar, flour, rice, tobacco, butter, 
wine, bar-iron, sugar, oil, chocolate, prunes, brandy, beef, 
rum, hams, candles, soap, cheese, fish, beer, porter, port and 
ginseng, as well as some specie. The Astrea in 1789 carried, 
in addition to many of the articles noted above : snuff, shoes, 
harness and saddlery. The Asia, sailing the same year from 
Philadelphia, carried rum, specie and British manufactured 
goods. The General Washington from Providence in 1791, 
in addition to wine, spirits and ginseng, carried tar, iron 
bars, anchors, shot and cannon. For many of the commodi- 
ties in the above lists there could be only a limited demand ; 
they were obviously intended to supply the needs of 
Europeans rather than of Asiatics. 

A few years later we find very much simpler manifests. 
For the voyage of the ship Triton,^^ which left New York 
for Canton in 1804, capital to the extent of $120,000 was 



20 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

advanced by seven New York merchants and firms, and 
this was invested as follows: 9533 beaver skins at $5 each, 
$47,665; and 70,372 Spanish dollars, costing $71,882. The 
ship Lion,"'^ sailing from New York early in 1816, carried 
among other items, 60 cases of opium, valued at $30,015, 
and also 45 kegs, and 2 boxes of Spanish dollars, valued at 
$110,000. The appearance of furs, opium, and an increasing 
proportion of specie in the later manifests reveals the condi- 
tion of the problem of exchange. The Americans had been 
forced to fall back on Spanish dollars the demand for which 
had pushed them to a premium, and were supplementing 
this precious medium of exchange with furs and opium. 
This export of specie exerted a very disturbing effect on 
the condition of American currency, especially after the War 
of 1812. A committee appointed to consider the subject 
made a report in the House of Representatives in 1819 -^ 
that '' the whole amount of our current coin is probably not 
more than double that which has been exported in a single 
year to India, including China in the general term." The 
largest China merchant in New York in 1824 admitted that 
out of his total exports to China of $1,311,057 for that year, 
nearly $900,000 was specie. His other items of export were 
British manufactured goods, $356,407, and American pro- 
duce, chiefly furs and ginseng, to the extent of only $60,000. 
At that time a Boston merchant, probably Thomas H. Per- 
kins, wrote: 

"There has been a strong prejudice existing against the China 
trade in this country, under the idea that specie was necessarily ex- 
ported to procure cargoes from China. So far is this from the fact, 
in our case, that, although our importations have averaged more than 
a million dollars annually for several years, in the products of China, 
of which silks and nankeens form a considerable portion, that we 
have not shipped a Spanish dollar for the past three years to China. 
Our funds arise from the export of opium from Turkey, British goods 
from Great Britain, lead and quick-silver from Gibraltar, and the 
same articles on a large scale from Trieste." 

The same writer asserted that he had already made the 
experiment of shipping American cotton goods to China, 
Manila, Java, and to the Mediterranean ports and to 



THE BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE 21 

Smyrna, and was satisfied that in the "more gross cotton 
fabrics" the American manufacturers could already compete 
successfully with their British rivals. Another merchant 
predicted a trade with China in raw cotton in competition 
with the Bengal product "whenever raw cotton can be pur- 
chased in this country at ten cents a pound." The next year 
cotton went down temporarily to eleven cents, but the mer- 
chant never lived to see the day of 'ten cent cotton.' The 
exportation of cotton goods, however, of the coarser grades, 
steadily increased. — 

It was asserted in 1852 ^^ that the United States had 
shipped silver to China since 1784 to the extent of $180,- 
000,000. The American port records show nearly $70,000,- 
000 to have been shipped between 1805 and 1818. As to 
the total amount which had been received in China from 
American ships there could only be wild guesses, for no one 
knows how much specie for the East was collected on the 
circuitous voyages. 

The inward cargoes from the Far East consisted of 
cotton and silk textiles from India ; spices ; and from China, 
tea, nankeens, cassia, China-ware, straw mats and matting, 
sugar and drugs. Tea and nankeens formed the greater part 
of the value of the China cargoes. One has but to examine 
this list of commodities to see how slender was the perman- 
ent basis for the American trade with the East. When the 
United States had become a manufacturing nation and had 
developed the logical sources of supply nearer home, therv 
remained only tea and spice as articles of constant demand, 
and the United States did not become a nation of tea 
drinkers. Tea was a luxury ^" in the early days, costing in 
1791 from twenty-eight cents to more than a dollar a pound, 
according to grade. Coffee became more popular, and it was 
cheaper. Expanding population and reexportation, rather 
than increased per capita consumption, accounted for the 
growing East India trade. 



22 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

1. See, for example, Philip Cuyler Letter Book (N. Y. Pub. Lib. 

Mss. Div.). At the outbreak of the Seven Years' War Cuyler 
ordered several barrels of tea (July 20, 1756) from John 
Hokson of Holland through Captain Corne "who sails this 
day from Rotterdam." 

2. Documents Relative to the Colonial History of New York 

(Albany, 1854). Vol. 4, pp. 307-10, 446, 459, 480. 

3. "The Life of John Ledyard," by Jared Sparks, Cambridge, 1828. 

4. "The Journals of Major Samuel Shaw, the first American Consul 

at Canton, with a life of the author," by Josiah Quincy, Bos- 
ton, 1847. 

5. "East India Trade of Providence, 1787-1807," by Gertrude 

Selwyn Kimball, Brown University Historical Papers, 1-10, 
1894-99; 3 Dip. Corres., of U. S., Sept. 19, 1783-March 4, 1789 
(Washington, 1837) p. 771. 

6. See, for example, America and England (Mss. in Bancroft Col- 

lection, N. Y. Pub. Lib.) ; and, Letters of Phineas Bond, 
American Historical Association Reports, 1896, Vol. 1. 

7. "Oriental Commerce," by William Milburn, London, 1813, 2 

vols. ; "Statistical View of the Commerce of the United States 
of America," by Timothy Pitkin, Hartford, 1816. 

8. Papers of Continental Congress, Reports of Committees, Vol. 

5, p. 11. (Mss. Div., Lib. of Congress) ; Annex to the Treaty 
of Amity and Commerce of Oct 8, 1782, between the United 
States and the Netherlands. 

9. "Progress of New York in a Century, 1776-1876," by John 

Austin Stevens, New York, 1876. 

10. Madison Papers (N. Y. Pub. Lib.) Vol. 14; W. Grayson to 

Madison, May 28, 1785. 

11. Laws of Pennsylvania, 1785, p. 669; 1787, p. 241; Laws of New 

York, 1787, chap. 81, cited in "American Commercial Legisla- 
tion before 1789," by A. A. Giesecke, New York, 1910. 

12. See "History of Early Relations between the United States and 
^' China," by K. C. Latourette, Transactions of the Conn. 

Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 22, 1917, pp. 78-9, foot- 
note, for complete summary of protective legislation and its 
detailed changes. 

13. Report on the China Trade (S. Doc. No. 31:19-1) gives much 

information as to the cost of teas at Canton. 

14. Kimball; "Statistical Annals of the United States," by Adam 

Seybert, Philadelphia, 1818. 

15. President Washington, Jan. 7, 1792, declined to furnish Brown 

and Francis of Providence a recommendation to be used in 
Europe in securing a $100,000 loan to build a vessel for the 
East India trade on the ground that "it would be almost im- 
possible to separate my private from my official capacity in ' 
this case." (Misc. Letters, Dept. of State). 

16. Journal of the Voyage of the Brigantine Hope, by Joseph 

Ingraham (Mss. Div., Lib. of Congress). 



THE BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE 23 

lY. Fanning Memorial. H. Doc. No. 57 ; 26-1 

18. Consular Letters from Canton, Honolulu and Batavia. Dept. 

of State. 

19. Hudson Collection; Papers relating to the building of the ship 

Massachusetts at Braintree, Mass., 1787-91 (N. Y. Pub. Lib.). 

20. House of Commons, Sessional Papers, 1821, Yol. 7. 

21. Canton Letters, Yol. 1, Feb. 3, 1815. See also Misc. Letters, 

Nov 1, 1816, C. J. Ingersoll to Mr, Monroe; and also see 
H. Doc. No. 71:26-2, Sept. 22, 1805, Snow to Madison, 

22. Edward Everett, in Hunt's "Lives of American Merchants," 

Yol. 1, p. 139. 

23. See Manifest of the Astrea, printed at length, p, 58ff,, "Hunt's 

American Merchants," Yol. 2. 

24. Account Books of Oliver Wolcott & Co. (N. Y. Hist. Soc.) 

25. H. Doc. No. 137:19-1; S. Doc. No. 31:19-1, give an extensive 

exhibit of the condition of the trade after 1820. See also 
Worthy P. Sterns, "Foreign Trade of the United States, 
1820-40" ; Journal of Political Economy, Yol. 8, 1899-1900. 

26. Wolcott Account Books. 

27. Ihid. 

28. Lowndes Eeport, Jan. 26, 1819, H. Doc. Ill :15-2. 

29. S. Ex. Doc. No. 49 :32-2. 

30. "Old Merchants of New York," by Walter Barrett, Clerk, 5 Yols. 

New York, 1885. Yol. 4, p. 213. Barrett, although making an 
enormous number of misstatements, is nevertheless a valuable 
source of information for all the early trade, particularly for 
that after 1820. 



CHAPTER II 

THE POETS OF ASIA AND THE PACIFIC 

As we follow the American vessels to Asia we note that 
there were two possible routes: around the Cape of Good 
Hope, or around Cape Horn and westward across the 
Pacific. 

The eastward route was usually selected by the larger 
Indiamen from Philadelphia, New York, Providence and 
Massachusetts which engaged in the direct trade with India 
or with China. This route also offered many advantages 
to the tramp which depended in part on cargoes offered from 
port to port. In any case the route lay across the Indian 
Ocean, past the Malay peninsula, and up the China Sea. 
Ports along the way invited attention and were, in fact, a 
necessity for the replenishing of ship's stores, if not for 
trade. 

Isle de France and India 

The American trade with Isle de France (Mauritius) 
opened in April, 1786, when the Grand Turk arrived with 
an assorted cargo evidently intended to meet the needs of 
the French settlement. The ship was then chartered to the 
extent of two thirds of the space by a Frenchman to carry 
freight to Canton, the charterer agreeing to pay all the 
port charges. The Grand Turk returned to Salem in May, 
1787, with a cargo of tea, ox-hides, shammy skins, buck- 
skins, wine, muslins and bandanna handkerchiefs. Derby 
followed up the Mauritius and Indian trade and, finding it 
more profitable than that with Canton, devoted himself 
to it during the last eight years of his life. When he died in 
1799 he was reported to be possessed" of a million dollars, 
the largest fortune in the United States. Commerce with 

24 



26 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

Mauritius reached its height in 1800; there were seventeen 
arrivals at Salem alone from Mauritius in the years 1797 
and 1798. 

The Mauritius trade has an interest aside from its 
intrinsic value, for it was largely through the action of the 
French Government in extending the hospitality of the 
French ports in the Indian Ocean to American ships in 1783, 
and in formally opening them to American trade the next 
year, that the ports of British India were thrown open to 
Americans on especially favorable terms. Indian produce 
had become available to American vessels at the French 
ports. The Dutch and the Danes also were friendly to the 
Americans and they also had settlements in India. There 
were, besides, the ports of the native princes. It was the 
policy of Great Britain with her own nationals to control 
the trade in such a way that all produce exported from 
India would either be imported to England or at least pay 
toll in London, but international competition made it im- 
possible to maintain such a monopoly against American 
ships. The Americans would get the cargoes in any case. 
The East India Company, therefore, notwithstanding the 
fact that no commercial treaty existed with the United 
States, and in spite of such rancor and jealousy as remained 
from the late war, determined not only to admit American 
vessels to British India but even to offer special induce- 
ments to bring them there.^ 

The first American ship to enter an Indian port was the 
Chesapeake of Baltimore. The vessel had been built 
especially for the trade and was commanded by her owner, 
Captain John O'Donnell, who had brought the Pallas into 
New York in 1784. The Chesapeake cleared, probably from 
Norfolk, in the latter part of 1786 and returned to Perth 
Amboy in 1789. She was warmly welcomed in India, the 
Supreme Council of Bengal exempting her, as a mark of 
special favor, from all customs duties. Lord Cornwallis 
and the Government of India issued an order that American 
ships at the East India Company's settlements should be 
treated in all respects as the most favored foreigners. This 



THE PORTS OF ASIA AND THE PACIFIC 27 

policy was confirmed in the commercial treaty with Great 
Britain in 1794 (Article 13). The privileges secured were 
even greater, for Americans paid only 6 per cent import 
duties, the same as those paid by the English, whereas other 
nations paid 8 per cent. Furthermore, the Americans were 
exempted from the 2 per cent export duty which was paid 
by all others, except the British. And then, although the 
treaty of 1794 limited the trade in American vessels to 
direct trade with American ports, special licenses were 
issued permitting Americans to carry Indian produce to 
other ports of the Indian Ocean and to China, thus linking 
the peninsula in those circuitous voyages to which American 
ships were so well adapted. 

Derby of Salem had four vessels in the Indian Ocean in 
1787. They visited Surat, Bombay and Calcutta. They 
carried among other commodities, Bombay cotton to Can- 
ton, and brought Indian cotton to Salem. Derby's son 
returned from the East in 1791 after a residence of three 
years in which he had directed a very lively trade which 
reached from Bombay to Canton, and was reported to have 
made $100,000 on his various transactions. The Betsey of 
Baltimore, the Commerce of Philadelphia, and the Leda of 
Boston all visited India in the season of 1786-7. While 
exact evidence is lacking it is probable that before 1790 the 
total American tonnage in the Indian ports exceeded that 
at Canton.* 

The American tariff of 1816 ^ imposed a protective duty 
on coarse cottons, setting on them a minimum valuation of 
twenty-five cents a yard, the effect of which was to place 
the India trade under a severe handicap. Nevertheless a 
certain amount of commerce continued. In the season of 
1829-30 there were sixteen vessels with a tonnage of 4941 

*The major portion of this commerce with India had been claimed for both 
Salem and Philadelphia, but records sufficient for comparison are lacking. 
Between 1785 and 1799 Derby made forty-seven voyages to the East Indies. 
Between 1800 and 1842 the vessels entering the port of Salem were : from Cal- 
cutta, 115 ; Bombay, 20 ; Bengal, 6 ; Madras, 6. There were also two from 
Ceylon and two from Siam. Before 1812 Joseph Peabody of Salem, out of a 
total of 164 voyages, had 38 from Calcutta alone. During this same period 
Peabody had only 17 voyages to Canton. The years of the greatest activity for 
the Salem-India trade were 1802-7 and 1816-22. In 1800 twelve vessels loaded 
at Calcutta for Boston. 



28 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

tons clearing from British India ports, and the following 
year nineteen vessels. The India trade, which had dwindled 
as the Americans learned to manufacture their own cottons, 
picked up again in the two decades which preceded the Civil 
War. The American tonnage at Calcutta in the second half 
of the year 1845^ was 8889 tons (19 vessels), almost all 
of it being from Boston or elsewhere in New England. 
The inward cargoes at Calcutta consisted of lumber, cotton 
goods and ice; the outward cargoes being made up chiefly 
of hides, salt peter, indigo, and opium. The ice trade with 
Calcutta had been initiated in 1835 and came "just in time 
to preserve Boston's East India commerce from ruin." ^ 
In 1857 one hundred and fifty-two American vessels de- 
parted from British India ports with cargoes valued at 
$11,000,000. 

The appointment of an American consul in India was 
a subject of consideration very soon after the close of the 
Revolution. Captain O'Donnell^ of the Chesapeake had 
applied for a position as general commissioner for the 
United States for the Far East. He desired authority to 
negotiate trade agreements with ''the principal independent 
powers of Asia" which he described as Tippoo Saib, son of 
Hyder Ally, the Marattas on the coast of Malabar, the 
King of Acheea in Sumatra, and the Malay King of Ternati. 
He also outlined a plan by which British merchants in India 
would be able to evade the rules of the Company monopoly 
by shipping their fortunes to the United States under the 
protection of blank passports issued by O'Donnell. To this 
plan John Jay reported to the Continental Congress some- 
what testily that if residents of India were to come to the 
United States, their coming should be accomplished "by 
means perfectly unexceptional, and not by the sovereign 
of this country giving false evidence of American property 
... to vessels, officers and crews entirely foreign to the 
United States." The request was denied. As for treaties 
with the independent powers of Asia, the Continental 
Congress was too much preoccupied even to entertain the 
idea. Political connections with Asia, so long as ports were 



THE PORTS OF ASIA AND THE PACIFIC 29 

open and trade reasonably free, was farthest from the 
thought of the American people. 

The necessity for a consul at Calcutta increased, espe- 
cially to care for American sailors at a time when American 
vessels were being sold in Indian ports. George Cabot of 
Boston, November 16, 1792, in a letter to President Wash- 
ington ^ urged the importance of appointing a consul and 
mentioned the "very precarious tenure" of American rights 
in India. He thought that an agent on the spot might be 
able to accomplish something "by availing ourselves as 
much as possible of the competition" which existed between 
the rival French, Dutch, Danish and English interests. 
Cabot, as well as many other Massachusetts merchants 
recommended the appointment of Benjamin Joy of New- 
berryport and Boston. The appointment was made and 
Mr. Joy reached Calcutta in 1784. He engaged William n*^y 
Abbott, the secretary to the Nabob of Arcot, to act as con- 
sular agent and vice consul at Madras, but was unable 
to find a suitable person to serve in Bombay. Joy was 
received cordially by the British Government but with- 
out orders from London he could not be recognized as 
consul. 

Consul Joy remained in India less than two years and 
resigned his commission froiTx Boston January 24, 1796. 
Two successors were appointed in 1796 and in 1801, respec- 
tively, one from Philadelphia and the other from Massa- 
chusetts, but it does not appear that either of them ever 
entered upon the duties of the office. The next consul was 
James B. Higginson of Massachusetts who entered upon 
his work in 1843. 

The India trade of the United States was entirely with- 
out political significance. However, the close association 
of American and British merchants in both the direct India- 
American and in the India-Canton trade exercised an influ- 
ence on American policy in China, for it brought the 
Americans and the English together at Canton and ac- 
counted for the disposition of many of these merchants to 
seek common action in 1839 and later. 



30 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

Adventures — Mocha, Sumatra, Siam 

While the national estabhshments of Great Britain and 
the European powers in the Indian Ocean led their mer- 
chants to confine their trade chiefly to ports under their 
respective flags, the Americans were inclined to exploration 
and the discovery of new markets. 

American trade along the coast of Africa, Arabia and 
Persia in the early decades of the nineteenth century ap- 
pears to have been greater than that of all the European 
nations combined. The Recovery of Salem (Captain Joseph 
Ropes) opened the coffee trade with Mocha in 1798 and 
soon a thriving commerce, by way of the Cape, was estab- 
lished between Mocha and Smyrna. At the latter port the 
trade was quickly related to China, as well as directly to 
the United States, by the exchange for Turkey opium. 

From Mocha the American trade spread in all directions 
through the domains of the Sultan of Muscat whose sway 
extended from the Persian Gulf to Cape Delgado on the 
coast of Africa. While the trade appears to have decreased 
after the War of 1812, its importance was considered of 
sufiicient moment to include a treaty with the Sultan as 
a part of the program of Edmund Roberts in 1832. In the 
thirty-two months, September, 1832, to May, 1835, out of 
a total of forty-one vessels with a total of 6559 tons, visiting 
Zanzibar, thirty-two vessels of 5497 tons were American.'^ 
Of the American vessels, twenty were from Salem, three 
from Boston, and three from New York. The exports con- 
sisted chiefly of gum copal, aloes, gum arable, columbo wood, 
drugs, ivory, tortoise-shell, hides, bees-wax, and cocoa^ut 
oil. Shortly after the ratification of the treaty a special 
effort was made by some New York merchants to develop 
this trade but the panic of 1837 intervened. However 
American influence at Zanzibar was predominant, according 
to an English historian, until at least 1859. During the 
fifties American vessels at Zanzibar ranged from twenty- 
four to thirty-five annually, while British vessels never 
numbered more than six. 



THE PORTS OF ASIA AND THE PACIFIC 31 

The trade with the pepper coast of Sumatra began soon 
after 1790, when Captain Jonathan Carnes of Salem 
brought home a cargo which sold for seven hundred per 
cent profit. Such fabulous profits could not be kept secret 
and the trade grew rapidly. In the spring of 1803 there 
were twenty-one American vessels on the northwest coast 
of Sumatra after pepper. The Americans came to have 
practically a monopoly. In 1820 it was asserted that the 
Americans were sending forty vessels, of about two hun- 
dred tons each, to Sumatra annually.^ It would appear 
that the trade at this time was nearly equal to that at 
Canton. 

As a result of the attack by the natives of Quallah 
Battoo on the Friendship of Salem in 1830, the U. S. Frigate 
Potomac was ordered to visit the coast and punish the 
natives — a commission which was executed with great thor- 
oughness.'^ The action of the natives was usually repre- 
sented as entirely unprovoked by the Americans, but there 
is reason to doubt such statements. There are hints that 
some of the Americans overreached themselves in their 
barter, even to the extent of using scales with hollow beams 
in which quicksilver had been inserted. 

Of the trade with Siam little is known. What little 
there was appears to have been conducted from Batavia 
and later from Singapore, and its growth was restricted by 
excessive port charges, high duties, and the arbitrary rights 
of preemption exercised by the king and high officials until 
the treaty of 1833. 

Batavia and Manila 

The Batavia trade of the United States was of some 
importance in itself, and more especially because of the 
relation of Batavia to China and Japan. Although the 
American treaty of 1782 with the Netherlands seems not 
to have contemplated any such trade, the Americans were 
freely admitted to the port, except for a few months at the 
beginning of the season of 1790-1 when the Dutch gov- 



32 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

ernor, prompted perhaps by the Dutch East India Com- 
pany, was disposed to prohibit it. Both the Astrea and 
Three Sisters of Salem had difficulty in that season, but 
Blanchard and Thomas H. Perkins, the supercargoes, man- 
aged to "fix" matters with the authorities. Shortly after- 
wards Major Shaw arrived on the Massachusetts, and met 
with similar opposition. Clothed in his authority as Ameri- 
can Consul at Canton, Shaw entered a vigorous protest 
which aroused the disgust of the Dutch governor that the 
Americans should be inaugurating the custom of Merchant- 
consuls, but the restrictions on American trade were not 
renewed. 

The relations between the Dutch and the Americans 
became very friendly, and when the newly created Batavian 
Republic hesitated to trust the annual Company ship to 
Nagasaki under a flag which the British might not respect, 
the Eliza, under the American flag, was chartered for the 
voyage (1798). For several years thereafter the American 
flag appeared regularly in Japan each season, and when the 
Department of State, in 1832, began to assemble informa- 
tion with a view to treaty relations with Japan, it was 
mainly through Dutch sources and through Americans who, 
in the employ of the Dutch, had been to Nagasaki, that the 
information was secured. 

Unlike the British in India, the Dutch discouraged 
American trade with Java. The import and export duties 
for goods in foreign vessels was double what it was for the 
Dutch. ^^ Provisions, however, such as were needed by the 
Dutch garrison could be supplied cheaper by America than 
by Holland, and this trade became of some value in the 
days when it was of so much importance to collect abroad 
as many Spanish dollars as possible for Canton. Nine 
tenths of the importation of salt provisions into Java in 
1825 were made by the Americans. Singapore, with its 
freer trade regulations, became a rival to Batavia and the 
American trade with the latter port declined sharply, being 
in 1832 only a small fraction of what it was ten years 
earlier. In 1834 the principal articles taken out of Batavia. 



THE PORTS OF ASIA AND THE PACIFIC 33 

in American vessels were rice, sugar, pepper, coffee and 
quicksilver. 

The chief importance of Java to the Americans was 
that the regular route to Canton was past Java Head and 
through the straits of Anjier and after the long voyage 
from the Cape, some place of refreshment as well as of 
communication was a necessity. John McClallam was 
United States commercial agent for Batavia in 1807.^^ 
Just before the establishment of the American embargo he 
was instructed to keep in touch with the ships passing 
from Canton and touching at Anjier Point, and to take 
proper measures for apprising them of the "crisis and for 
guarding them against the risks to which it might expose 
them." Similar instructions were sent to the consul at 
the Isle de France, but whether either of these consuls ever 
actually discharged any duties in their respective posts is 
not known. The first American ofiicer to communicate 
with the State Department from Batavia wrote in 1818, 
acknowledging the receipt of his commission as "agent for 
the United States for commerce and seamen." The Nether- 
lands Government did not recognize consular representa- 
tives in Java. 

Manila, because of its geographical position, was an out- 
post of Canton for the trader whether he approached China 
by way of the Cape, the Horn, or the Northwest coast. 
Independent of the China trade, the Philippines were of 
slight importance to Americans. The exact date of the 
beginning of the trade is difficult to fix. The Enterprise 
(Captain Adam Babcock) left Boston in 1788 and was at 
the Isle de France in 1792. There the America was pur- 
chased and the two vessels went to Manila and purchased 
sugar for Ostend. They were captured in the Straits of 
Sunda by a squadron of British and Dutch ships and taken 
into Calcutta, though for what reason is not known.^^ 
This trade in sugar continued, and in 1819 the American 
consul reported trade also in indigo, coffee and cotton. 
There were 23 American vessels at Manila in 1819, more 
than in any two previous years.^^ There was only one 



34 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

American resident in the city for the greater part of the 
time until 1825, when the consul could find no American 
to whom he could turn over the duties of his office while 
he visited the United States. The rice trade from Manila 
to Canton sprung up about this time, owing to the new 
port regulation at Canton which permitted a reduction of 
duty to "rice ships." ^'^ The Americans then made increas- 
ing use of Manila as an avenue by which the onerous port 
charges at Whampoa might be lightened. A trade in beche 
de mer, a sea slug much prized by the Chinese as an article 
of food, appeared about 1830. Four years later the consul 
reported that unbleached and colored goods of coarse 
texture, of American manufacture, had begun to come into 
Manila by way of China. In the last six months of 1835, 
13,876 tons of American shipping arrived, the largest 
amount up to that date ever reported. 

The policy of the Spanish Government placed no special 
obstacles in the way of the growth of American trade 
though the consul was not recognized. The first consul 
was appointed in 1817. 

The only American firm of importance was that of 
Russell, Sturgis and Company, founded about 1825, and 
subsequently incorporated in the famous Russell and Com- 
pany at Canton. 

The Fur Trade 

The route around the Horn and across the Pacific to 
China was selected by fur traders, by circuitous traders at 
South American ports, and occasionally by "out of season" 
vessels in the direct trade with Canton. The monsoon 
changed about the first of November in the China Sea, 
making difficult the direct approach to Canton from the 
South. Those vessels therefore which did not fall in with 
the course of the monsoons and the general tide of trade at 
Canton, and arrived in the winter, or departed in the sum- 
mer, often chose to effect their approach to or departure 
from the coast of China by way of the Pacific route. 




35 



36 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

The value of ginseng as an article of exchange at Canton 
was quickly proven to have been over-estimated. The fur 
trade sprang up to take its place and to create for itself an 
even greater importance. As long as the supply of furs 
held out and the cost of collection was slight, they met ad- 
mirably the pressing need of Americans for an article of 
barter. 

The fur trade falls easily into three classifications: the 
furs which were brought from the interior — from the region 
of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi Valley — to the At- 
lantic ports and then shipped as part of the regular cargoes 
to Canton; the seal-skin trade with the Falkland Islands 
and the South Pacific; and the trade with the Northwest 
coast in both land and sea skins. With the continental 
trade through the Atlantic ports we are little concerned, 
for while the trade was extensive for thirty or forty years — • 
until the European market for furs offered better prices — it 
exerted no important or distinctive influence upon Ameri- 
can relations with the Far East.* 

The seal-skin trade appears to have been begun inadvert- 
ently. About the time of the departure of the Empress of 
China from New York and the Grand Turk from Salem, 
''Lady" Haley of Boston sent her ship States to the Falk- 
land Islands for sea-elephant oil and furs^^. The States is 
reported to have been of the incredible size of about 1000 
tons. This ship brought back 13,000 skins which were sup- 
posed to be those of sea-otter. The experimental character 
of the early trade with Asia is clearly revealed in the trans- 
actions which followed. The cargo of the States proved to 
be seal-skins for which there was no known certain market. 
They were sold for a trifling sum in New York and then 
placed on board the brig Eleanor a (Captain Metcalf) which 
took them to the coast of India. Just why furs should be 
taken to such a market is not very apparent. Captain 
Metcalf sailed from New York probably about the same 

*The American Fur Trade papers in the New York Historical Society and 
the University of Wisconsin libraries, as well as the testimony of the Americans 
in Canton, show clearly that in the thirties of the last century the continental, 
like the Pacific fur trade with China, had practically ceased. 



THE PORTS OF ASIA AND THE PACIFIC 37 

time Captains Kendrick and Grey departed for the North- 
west coast. The Eleanora lingered on the coast of India a 
while and then brought its cargo to Canton where it found 
a ready market in 1788, It was the first cargo of American 
furs carried to Canton. The Eleanora then entered the 
Northwest coast trade and was wrecked a few years later 
at Macao. 

The seal-skin trade developed rapidly. It was carried 
on almost exclusively by the Americans in small vessels 
with relatively small crews. The initial capital required 
was merely the cost of the vessel and outfit. The crew 
slaughtered the seals, skinned them and prepared the pelts 
for market. When the cargo was obtained the vessel sailed 
immediately for Canton either directly or by way of the 
Sandwich Islands. While the trade lasted, that is, until the 
seals were nearly extinct, it was probably the most profit- 
able branch of the East India trade. It was, however, both 
ruthless and reckless, and within a generation the seals had 
become so scarce that it was no longer profitable. ^^ This 
trade quickly lured the Americans from the Falkland 
Islands over into the South Pacific and by 1820 there were 
relatively few good harbors in the Pacific south of the 
Equator which had remained unvisited by American ships. 
Over not a few of the Islands the American flag had been 
raised,^"^ or American sailors, shipwrecked, deserted or de- 
serting, were playing the roles of either monarch or adviser 
to the natives, after traditional Anglo-Saxon fashion. 

The Northwest Coast 

The resources of the Northwest coast for the Canton 
trade were first disclosed to the survivors of the last Cap- 
tain Cook expedition. In 1778 Captain Cook had made 
some surveys of the coast and had landed at Nootka Sound 
where he acquired some furs from the Indians. Within ten 
years after Captain Cook's visit to the Northwest coast no 
less than seven states — Russia, England, Portugal, Spain, 
France, Austria (Belgium) and the United States — were 



38 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

represented in that region all, with the exception of the 
Austrians and Portuguese, setting up some sort of claim to 
sovereignty over the areas which were found to be so richly 
productive. In the face of such formidable prospective 
competition the Americans were especially favored by the 
handicaps placed upon their competitors. Only the English 
and Russian efforts to promote trade became earnest. The 
English efforts were encumbered by the monopoly of the 
East India Company. English vessels to the Northwest 
coast were allowed only by special permission of the Com- 
pany, and were required to bring their cargoes back to 
China and exchange them, not for Chinese produce which 
could be taken to England and the Continent, but for specie 
which must be deposited with the East India Company. 
For this specie the Company would issue bills on London 
at twelve months, sight.^^ The Americans, on the other 
hand, by barter at Canton were able to get about twenty 
per cent more for their pelts and were at the same time 
free to carry their cargoes wherever they pleased, dispose of 
their produce quickly, and by taking them to the Continent 
could make a second turnover before returning to the 
United States. The restrictions of the Company monopoly, 
therefore, practically eliminated the British traders from 
the competition. The Russian trade was under the handi- 
cap of being conducted far from its base of supplies, and 
the Russians were excluded from the Canton market, being 
confined to the overland trade with China. Thus the 
Americans were in a favored position which they were well 
able to utilize. 

John Ledyard's missionary work, further enriched by 
the publication of Captain Cook's journals, and the reports 
of the trade at Canton, bore fruit in 1787 in the fitting out 
of the Columbia and the Ladi/ Washington in Boston. 
Captain John Kendrick, master of the Columbia, was the 
commander of this famous expedition. The instructions to 
Kendrick were to send the sloop Lady Washington to Can- 
ton as soon as a cargo of furs had been obtained, while the 
Columbia was expected to remain on the coast. Kendrick 



THE PORTS OF ASIA AND THE PACIFIC 39 

was particularly cautioned not to mistreat the rndians. His 
wages were five pounds per month and a commission of 
five per cent on the net proceeds of the voyage.^^ 

The Columbia and her tender made a long voyage and 
did not reach the coast until too late in 1788 to collect any 
furs so they spent the winter at Nootka. The following 
summer, provisions running short, Captain Kendrick trans- 
ferred himself to the Lady Washington and sent the Co- 
lumbia under the command of Captain Robert Grey to 
China. While Kendrick remained on the coast Grey ex- 
changed his furs at Canton and returned to Boston by way 
of the Cape of Good Hope. The Columbia was so unfor- 
tunate as to arrive in Boston when prices were depressed 
and the voyage did not achieve financial success. However, 
Captain Grey was sent out the second time and in May, 
1792, anchored in the harbor on the coast of Washington 
which bears his name, and also discovered the mouth of 
the Columbia River, thus making one of the primary claims 
which were later urged by the Government of the United 
States for the possession of Oregon. 

Captain Kendrick appears to have been the man with 
the imagination. He was so enamoured of the Northwest 
coast that he began the purchase of land at Nootka Sound. 
One tract, eighteen miles square, he purchased from 
Tarasson, an Indian Chief, for "two muskets, a Boat's sail 
and a quantity of Powder"; another tract at the head of 
Nootka Sound, nine miles around, was bought for "two 
muskets and a quantitj of powder" ; and still another tract 
eighteen miles square cost four muskets, a large sail and 
some powder.^^ 

To some of Captain Kendrick's heirs who subsequently 
sought to realize on these estates, John Howell, who had 
been a clerk on the Columbia, wrote supplying some inter- 
esting details of the character of the man : 

"I have had an opportunity of seeing most of Capt. Kendrick's 
purchases on the IST. W. coast of America and cannot flatter you with 
any hopes of profit from them even to your great-great-great-grand- 
children. They cost but little, it is true; and when the Millennium 



40 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

shall arrive and all the nations of the earth shall be at peace your 
posterity may perhaps settle there. That Capt. Kendrick considered 
his title a good one I have sufficient proof of, when one day he told 
the Commandant at Nootka Sound that lie bought his territories 
while other nations stole them; and that if they [the Spanish] were 
impertinent he would raise the Indians and drive them from their 
settlements. This, though a hold, was nevertheless a moderate project 
for a mind like his. Two of his favorite plans were to change the 
prevalence of the Easterly winds in the Atlantic Ocean and turn the 
Gulf Stream into the Pacific by cutting a canal through Mexico. 
But with all his follies he was a wonderful man — and worthy to be 
remembered beyond the gliding hours of the present generation. He 
was stunned [sic] by his appointment to the Columbia. Empires 
and fortunes broke on his sight. The passing, two-penny objects of 
his expedition were swallowed up in the magnitude of his Gulliverjan 
views, North East America was on the Lilliputian, but he designed 
N. W. America to be on the Brobdingnagian scale." 

An interesting illustration of the manner in which the 
trade with the Indians was conducted is preserved in the 
journal of Captain Joseph Ingraham of the Hope which 
reached the coast in 1791. To his great disappointment 
he found that the cloth and trinkets which he had brought 
out from Boston were not greatly desired by the Indians, 
previous traders having supplied their needs. Ingraham 
ingeniously met the situation by having his blacksmith set 
up his forge on deck and fashion iron collars, rings and 
bracelets which became extremely popular. For one iron 
collar he was able to obtain three skins which were worth 
about $75 at Canton. Ingraham reached Macao in Novem- 
ber where several fur ships had already preceded him. Be- 
fore the end of the year there were at least seven cargoes 
of furs placed on the market including a consignment from 
the Spanish Company at Manila and the Lady Washing- 
ton's from Nootka. 

Washington Irving, in his "Astoria," asserted that in 
the summer of 1792 there were twenty-one vessels on the 
Northwest coast, the greater part of which were American 
and owned by Boston merchants. Twenty-five years later 
Thomas H. Perkins of Boston, who had engaged in the trade 
very extensively, stated : "We formerly calculated that the 
collection of sea-otters purchased by the American ships 
annually was about 14,000 furs, the value of them in China 



THE PORTS OF ASIA AND THE PACIFIC 41 

may be averaged at twenty-five dollars each — making an 
aggregate of $350,000; the trade employed from six to ten 
ships from 200 to 300 tons." ^^ Perkins complained that 
the trade had already fallen off to less than a quarter of 
its former value, due to Russian competition. About the 
same time William Sturgis wrote that he had been on the 
coast in company with as many as sixteen American vessels. 
Such figures serve to show how very small this trade was 
even in its most prosperous days, but they also show, when 
studied in the light of the American exports from Canton 
which were paid for in furs that the trade was exceedingly 
profitable in proportion to the capital invested. 

The fur trade was supplemented at an early date by 
partial cargoes of sandal-wood from the Sandwich Islands 
and other places in the Pacific, and by the trade in beche 
de mer, only a part of which passed through Manila. 

The seal-skins brought to Canton from the South Pa- 
cific from 1805 to 1834 were reported as amounting to 
nearly 1,800,000, the valuation of which may be placed 
most conservatively at $3,500,000. Sea-otter pelts from 
the Northwest coast during the same period amounted to 
about 160,000, or at least $4,000,000. The value of the 
land skins shipped directly from Atlantic ports was prob- 
ably less than either of these items. The value of the 
entire fur trade before 1805 can only be guessed at. The 
entire fur trade of the United States from all sources with 
Canton from its beginning until its end soon after 1830 
may be placed at between $15,000,000 and $20,000,000.-2 
The value of the trade when the bartered China products 
were transferred to Europe or the United States and sold 
would, of course, show a very great increase over the value 
in Canton. The value of the exports from the United 
States to the Northwest coast in the twenty-eight years 
from 1789 to 1817 averaged annually about $163,000. No 
known figures afford a sound basis for exact statements; 
all that can be said is that the trade was of the utmost value 
to the young nation at a time when vessels and crews were 
easily obtained and Spanish dollars were scarce. 



42 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

Unlike the trade in the South Pacific, that with the 
Northwest coast left a permanent mark in the establish- 
ment of a claim for Oregon Territory, in the settlement of 
Astoria in 1811, and also in the development of a port at 
Honolulu. A glance at the map shows that by 1832 Ameri- 
cans had not only visited most of the Pacific Islands, but 
had actually estabhshed themselves for longer or shorter 
periods at no less than seven points: Sandwich Islands, 
1787; Nootka Sound, 1788; Marquesas, 1791; Fanning, 
1797; Fifi, 1800?; Galipagos, 1832; and Peel, 1832. Indeed, 
this list might be greatly expanded were one to count every 
point where Americans were known to have been. The 
significance of the list is, however, not in its length but in 
its shrinkage in the course of the next few decades, and in 
its lack of influence on the development of the United 
States. American interest gravitated into the North Pa- 
cific; whale fisheries took the place of the Northwest coast 
trade and sustained the development of an American set- 
tlement at Honolulu. 

An American agent for commerce and seamen was ap- 
pointed at Honolulu in 1820. American missionaries had 
already arrived. The Sandwich Islands was an object of 
lively interest to American trade and philanthropy. It 
was, however, until the American nation had crossed the 
continent, reached the Pacific Coast, and opened up trade 
with Japan, a lonely outpost. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

1. Milburn's "Oriental Commerce" (Ed. 1813). 

2. Statutes at Large, 2 :768 

3. Calcutta Consular Letters. 

4. "Maritime History of Massachusetts," by S. E. Morison (Boston 

and New York, 1921), p. 282. 

5. 3. Dip. Cor., pp. 773, 766. 

6. Misc. Letters (Dept. of State). 

7. Edmund Roberts Papers (Dept. of State) ; Zanzibar, the Island 

Metropolis of Eastern Africa, by F. B. Pearce, pp. 133-4. 

8. House of Commons Sessional Papers, 1821. Vol. 7. 

9. "American Naval Vessels in the Orient," by Charles Oscar 

Paullin. (Proceedings of the IT. S. Naval Institute, 1910). 



THE PORTS OF ASIA AND THE PACIFIC 43 

10. Batavia Consular Letters; Milburn's Oriental Commerce. (Ed. 

1813). 

11. Despatches to Consuls, Yol. 1, p. 297. 

12. Calcutta Consular Letters. 

13. Manila Consular Letters. 

14. Parliamentary Papers, 1830. Yol. 5:122; the Tan Kwae' at 

Canton, by an Old Eesident (W. C. Hunter) London, 1882. 
p. 100. 

15. 'Yoyage of the Neptune," Diary of Mr. Ebenezer Townsend, Jr. 

(Papers of the New Haven Colony Historical Society, 1888. 
Yol. 14.) 

16. "Yoyages Pound the World," by Edmund Panning (New York, 

1838) gives many details of this trade. 

17. "American Kelations in the Pacific and the Far East," by James 

Morton Callahan, in Johns Hopkins University Studies, 
Series XIX. Nos. 1-3. (1901.) 

18. Sessional Papers, 1821. _ Yol. 7. _ 

19. Correspondence concerning Captain Kendrick and the Settle- 

ment of his Estate. (Dept. of State.) 

20. Ihid. 

21. lUd. 

22. Fur trade statistics are to be found in a variety of sources: 

Pitkin's "Commerce of the United States" (Editions 1816, 
1835) ; "Chinese Eepository," April, 1835 ; Sessional Papers, 
1821; Hunt's Merchants Magazine, Yol. 3 (1840). 



CHAPTER III 

EAELY CHINA TEADE 

Having in mind the American vessels as they begin to 
converge upon the port of Canton from their various routes 
and with their varied cargoes, we may visuaUze the early 
trade at that port. 

The Empress of China arrived at Macao August 23, 
1784, and "saluted the town." ^ Having spent a few days 
in this historic Portuguese-Chinese port where the French 
and Swedish consuls extended to Major Shaw and Captain 
Green many courtesies, the Empress proceeded to Wham- 
poa, twelve miles below Canton and anchored in the river 
where all the foreign ships were required to discharge and 
receive their cargoes. The Americans remained four 
months, setting sail from Whampoa December 28, 1784. 
A few weeks later the Pallas, a chartered ship already re- 
ferred to, departed for New York with the second cargo 
under the care of Thomas Randall, Shaw's partner. The 
two vessels carried 880,100 pounds of tea. 

The following table, which can be regarded as only 
approximately accurate since exactness was never a quality 
of the early Canton trade reports, is a fair index of the 
relative growth of the trade before the War of 1812. In 
comparing American with British ships and cargoes it must 
be borne in mind that the average tonnage of the American 
vessels was probably less than half that of the British, and 
the American cargoes of tea contained a larger proportion 
of the cheapest grades. 

It will be noted from the table that the American trade 
was characterized by the most astonishing fluctuations both 
in the number of vessels visiting Canton and in the quan- 
tity of their outward cargoes. These fluctuations reveal the 

44 



EARLY CHINA TRADE 



45 



American, British, and Continental Clearances and Exportations ob* 
Tea at Canton, Seasons 1784-5 to 1810-11 * 



Clearances 


Export of Tea in 


lbs. 


Season 


Amer- 
ican 


British 


Conti- 
nental 


American 


British 


Continental 


1784-5. 


2 


14 


16 


880,100 


10,583,628 


16,551,000 


1785-6 


1 


18 


12 


695,000 


13,480,691 


15,715,900 


1786-7 


5 


27 


9 


1,181,860 


20,610,919 


10,165,160 


1787-8 


2 


29 


13 


750,900 


22,096,703 


13,578,000 


1788-9 


4 


27 


11 


1,188,800 


20,141,745 


9,875,900 


1789-90 


14 


21 


7 


3,093,200 


17,991,032 


7,174,200 


1790-1 


3 


25 


7 


743,100 


22,369,620 


2,291,560 


1791-2 


3 


11 


9 


1,863,200 


13,185,467 


4,431,730 


1792-3 


6 


16 


13 


1,538,400 


16,005,414 


7,864,800 


1793^ 


7 


18 


5 


1,974,130 


20,728,705 


3,462,800 


1794-5 


7 


21 


7 


1,438,270 


23,733,810 


4,138.930 


1795-6 


10 


15 


4 


2,819,600 


19,370,900 


2,759,800 


1796-7 


13 


23 


3 


3,450,400 


36,904,200 


2,515,460 


1797-8 


10 


17 


5 


3,100,400 


29,934,100 


2,714,000 


1798-9 


13 


16 


6 


5,674,000 


16,795,400 


4,319,300 


1799-0 


18 


14 


4 


5,665,067 


26,585,337 


1,577,066 


1800-1 


23 


19 


7 


4,762,866 


29,772,400 


3,968,207 


1801-2 


31 


25 


1 


5,740,734 


38,479,733 


185,533 


1802-3 


20 


38 


12 


2,612,436 


35,058,400 


5,812,266 


1803-4 


13 


44 


2 


2,371,600 


31,801,333 


2,132,666 


1804-5 


31 


38 


3 


8,546,800 


28,506,667 


3,318,799 


1805-6 


37 


49 


4 


11,702,800 


22,810,533 


1,809,466 


1806-7 


27 


58 


2 


8,464,133 


32,683,066 


1,534,267 


1807-8 


31 


51 


2 


6,408,266 


25,347,733 


1,144,266 


1808-9 


6 


54 


— 


1,082,400 


26,335,446 


none. 


1809-10 


29 


40 


— 


9,737,066 


26,301,066 


none. 


1810-11 


12 


34 


— 


2,884,400 


27,163,066 


none. 



*Table rearranged from Melburn's Oriental Commerce, vol. 2, p. 486 (First 
Ed.). These statistics, being based on seasons rather than upon years, and 
being taken from Canton reports, cannot be made in every case to correspond 
with such departures and returns from American ports as are available. They 
are, however, the most complete set of figures known for this period. 

experimental and speculative character of the beginnings 
of the trade. In' the season of 1789-90 fourteen vessels took 
away from Canton more than three million pounds of tea. 
Such heavy imports into the United States produced a 
glutted market and the following year there were only three 
vessels and the outward cargoes from Canton amounted to 
only about one fourth of those of the previous year. The 
recovery of the trade which immediately followed is to be 
explained by the reexportations of tea from the United 
States to Europe which followed the establishment of a 



46 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

system of drawbacks in the American customs. During 
the remainder of the period the American trade at Canton 
was influenced immediately and directly by the extent to 
which it was possible for the Americans to engage in the 
European trade during the Napoleonic wars. Every varia- 
tion of the political conditions in Europe and the American 
relation to them was directly registered in the amount of 
tea, per season, exported from Canton in American vessels. 
American policy in Canton was therefore primarily con- 
cerned with keeping open the supplies of tea and the ave- 
nues of trade. 

With these facts in mind it is of primary interest to 
note the conditions under which the trade at Canton was 
being conducted. 

Macao, Whampoa and Canton 

All foreigners in China were strictly confined to three 
localities; Macao, the old Portuguese leasehold under the 
simultaneous government of both the Portuguese and the 
Chinese; Whampoa, the anchorage in the Canton River, 
twelve miles below the city where foreign vessels were re- 
quired to anchor and from which they were not permitted 
to depart until the issuance of the final 'grand chop' indi- 
cating that every requirement of the Chinese authorities 
had been complied with; and, the 'factories' or 'hongs' 
outside the city wall at Canton. 

Macao had three functions in trade. It was the base 
from which the Portuguese conducted their commercial 
operations, and also the base for a large part of the smug- 
gling operations in which all of the foreign merchants joined 
impartially. The city was an outpost of the Chinese Gov- 
ernment where, exclusively, the permits to the foreign ships 
to go to Whampoa were issued. Every foreign vessel had to 
approach Canton through Macao. The third function of 
Macao was to afford a resort to the foreigners from Canton 
in the summer months, in times of illness, or whenever their 
conduct at Canton was obnoxious to the Chinese. Macao 



EARLY CHINA TRADE 



47 




48 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

was, for example, the refuge, though by no means the sole 
residence, of the foreign missionaries. Foreign women who 
came to China were permitted to reside only at Macao. 
The colony was governed by Portugal much in the same 
way that Manila was governed by Spain, or as Batavia or 
Calcutta, respectively, were governed except as modij&ed 
by the tenacious jurisdiction insisted upon by the Chinese 
who had never relinquished their sovereignty. During the 
summer the foreigners from Canton sustained at Macao a 
highly developed, ceremonious and luxuriant social life 
dominated by the British and resembling the social life of 
Calcutta and Madras. In 1832 Edmund Roberts reported 
that the city enjoyed the reputation of being - "one of the 
most immoral places in the world" — a statement not sup- 
ported by other testimony. The Americans entered upon 
this social life in proportion as their means and manners 
allowed. Until wealth crowned their labors their part in 
it was small. 

Whampoa was the second barrier to Canton. The river 
was not navigable to large vessels above the anchorage, 
and the factories could not have accommodated either all 
the foreign population or all the trade. The sailors, of 
whom there were at the height of the season from two to 
three thousand, lived on the ships at Whampoa and visited 
Canton only in small groups; they were, however, allowed 
to go ashore at the anchorage where settlements had grown 
up which doubtless merited the reputation which Roberts 
assigned to Macao. Provision was also made at Whampoa 
for the repair and refitting of the foreign vessels. The lively 
and varied scene at the anchorage never failed to impress 
the foreigner on his first visit to China. It was the subject 
of numberless descriptions and not a few paintings. 

The first stage of the commercial operations began at 
Whampoa. The vessel paid its port charges — which in the 
case of the American vessels was usually about $4000 — a 
sum which fell heavily upon the smaller craft for the pay- 
ments were not graduated to vessels below 400 tons. A 
linguist and a comprador, if not already obtained at Macao, 



EARLY CHINA TRADE 49 

must be taken at Whampoa. The hong merchant who was 
to transact the business of the vessel at Canton was also 
secured. He immediately had the cargo transferred to 
smaller craft and taken to Canton where it was sold or 
bartered for the return cargo. The hong merchant paid 
all the inward and outward duties. The master of the 
vessel was thus relieved of all responsibility except the 
care of his ship and the control of his crew, and the super- 
cargo had only to follow his goods to Canton, indicate his 
choices of commodities for the return voyage and then 
watch carefully that he did not get cheated. Trading with 
China thus became the simplest of transactions in which 
the comfort of the trader was disturbed only by the thought 
that it was quite impossible for him to know the extent to 
which his payments for government dues and services ren- 
dered were extortions unwarranted by law or evaded by his 
competitor. 

The factories were long narrow buildings of two or three 
stories in height and extending back towards the city wall. 
Goods were landed at small docks and carried across a park 
or parade ground to the front of the factories which were 
divided into sections perpendicularly with storage rooms, 
offices on the lower floor and living quarters above for the 
commission agents, supercargoes and guests. Factory and 
residence space was rented from the merchants who owned 
the hong. Every foreigner coming to Canton had to be 
guaranteed by some one of the hong merchants, usually the 
one who transacted the business of the voyage. Foreigners 
were not permitted to enter the city nor were they allowed 
to leave the factory grounds either by land or water except 
under very limited conditions. They could not walk in the 
country; they were, theoretically, denied the use of boats; 
but on occasion, with a suitable Chinese guide and pro- 
tector, they might visit the flower-gardens at Fati on the 
other side of the River. The foreigners were, in fact, vol- 
untary prisoners. 

By the Chinese GoVernment the trade was limited to 
the hong merchants, usually about a dozen in number, who 



50 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

paid highly for their privilege and in turn became surety for 
the good conduct of the foreigners. These merchants were 
organized into a 'co-hong' for concerted action in fixing 
prices, for mutual protection, and for the management of 
the trade. Some of the hong merchants became very 
wealthy; others experienced frequent financial reverses due 
either to the enmity of the government officials who levied 
tribute or to their own native instinct for speculation and 
gambling. 

Back of the co-hong stood the provincial officials, the 
chief of whom was the Viceroy, representing the Emperor. 
Each official had purchased his way to the position he 
occupied and then recouped himself from the trade. The 
Imperial Government had only two concerns: that an ever 
increasing amount of revenue be forwarded to Peking; and, 
that the foreigner be so 'soothed' and controlled so that 
foreign nations would have no opportunity of acquiring any 
foothold in the Empire, or of advancing a mile further in 
the direction of the capital. The obligation resting upon 
the provincial government therefore was to keep Peking 
satisfied and at the same time to levy from the trade as 
much tribute as it would bear. The powers of the Viceroy 
were very broad. His method of governing the foreigner 
was through the co-hong. He could make or break the 
Chinese merchant, fining, removing, even banishing him. 
The foreigner, in turn, as already indicated, was absolutely 
in the hands of the hong merchant from the day his vessel 
came to anchor at Whampoa until he had his return cargo 
on board. From the point of view of the Chinese Govern- 
ment the system was nearly nigh perfect. The Government 
in no way officially recognized the presence of the foreigner 
and admitted him to no direct intercourse, and yet the 
Government controlled the trader as only despots can. The 
ruination of the hong merchant involved the ruination of 
the foreigner to whom the hong was always in debt until 
the return cargo was safely on board at Whampoa. The 
foreigner had little choice but to submit. 

There was, on the other hand, a recognition of the fact 



EARLY CHINA TRADE 51 

that injustice to the foreigner and encroachments upon such 
of his rights as he had not voluntarily surrendered, would 
lead to irritation and trouble. The key-note therefore of 
the relationship between the Chinese and the foreigners 
was accommodation. This word occurs with great fre- 
quency in the literature of the time. It became of obvious 
advantage to everyone concerned that all relationships be 
managed in such a way as to insure harmony, which is 
another favorite Chinese word. 

The last resorts of the Imperial officials for the enforce- 
ment of their will upon the foreigners were to stop the trade 
and then, if necessary, to cut off communications with 
Whampoa and Macao, thus effecting the complete impris- 
onment of the traders. Since the government recognized 
no distinction between nations and might visit the sins of 
one merchant upon the entire body of traders by stopping 
the trade, a certain solidarity of public opinion developed 
which imposed upon each individual trader the obligation 
to accept the decisions of the majority. 

Conditions of American Trade 

Solidarity of interest transcending national lines was, 
however, modified by certain stern facts. When a British 
vessel came to Whampoa, although compelled to submit to 
the uniform port and trade regulations, it came under the 
shadow of the East India Company — a very powerful or- 
ganization. Until the dissolution of the Company mo- 
nopoly in 1834 the British merchant came to Canton only 
by leave of the Company and remained only so long as he 
acted in conformity with Company discipline. While these 
regulations and restraints operated greatly to restrict lib- 
erties both personal and commercial, and handicapped the 
British merchants in competition with Americans, they also 
bound them together with the protection of a mighty com- 
mercial organization at their back. And back of the 
Company was the British Government which was vitally 
interested in its success. The Company, in a variety of 



52 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

ways, could bring pressure to bear upon the Chinese and if 
a trial of strength became necessary, the East India Com- 
pany with its resources and reserves was in a far better 
position than the individual American merchant, to meet 
a strike with a boycott. The Chinese Government professed 
entire indifference as to whether the trade continued or not, 
but the foreign trade of China, by the time the American 
arrived, was so much a part of the economic fabric of many 
parts of the Empire that the Government would have found 
the expulsion of the foreign trader very difficult. The East 
India Company dominated the foreign colony at Canton. 
It could not, however, count upon such support from the 
Americans as the British residents were compelled to give. 
The individual American traders, far more than their Brit- 
ish competitors, required that the harmonious relations of 
the trade be continued from day to day. Disturbances 
meant relatively greater losses to Americans for their re- 
serves were less, and long continued disturbance of the 
trade would mean ruin. 

This condition was somewljat modified as the Americans 
came to build up strong and well capitalized commission 
houses and mercantile establishments, and as the trade 
came into the hands of a few wealthy firms, but it was 
modified only in degree. The Americans could not afford 
to be very self-assertive or to meet the arrogance of the 
Chinese with arrogance of their own. This peculiar situa- 
tion of the Americans controlled their conduct, and made 
them, unlike so many of their brother pioneers on the con- 
tinental frontiers of America, a peculiarly peace-seeking 
folk. 

Furthermore, the Americans immediately upon their 
entrance into the China trade, became very deeply involved 
in credit transaction with the hong merchants. The Chi- 
nese were easily able to bring to Canton a larger stock of 
tea than the foreigners, all of whom suffered from the lack 
of a suitable and adequate medium of exchange, could take 
away. Notwithstanding the stringent prohibitions of the 
government the hong merchants disposed of large amounts 



EARLY CHINA TRADE 53 

of their surplus goods to the Americans on credit. True, 
this surplus was usually what was left after the Company 
had made its selection, and was inferior, but neither the 
Americans or the Continentals who consumed the tea were 
such connoisseurs of tea as were the British, and, besides, 
the Americans could sell cheaply. These credit accounts 
which were entirely dependent upon the good will of the 
Chinese, were an additional incentive to peace. 

The Americans came to occupy a middle position in 
both the trade and politics of Canton. On the one hand 
were their British brethren with whom their interest in 
the continuance of the trade with the minimum of exaction 
and interference was identical, and on the other hand were 
the Chinese merchants whose good will and prosperity were 
matters of the utmost concern to the Americans. Through- 
out the pre-treaty days in China these three groups — Eng- 
lish, American and Chinese — constituted the only important 
elements in the situation. The representatives of other 
foreign nations, now less, now more in number, counted for 
little. In every issue between the foreigner and the Chinese 
the important question was whether the Americans would \ 
find it most to their profit to stand with the English or with / 
the Chinese. Indeed, this alignment continued long after/ 
the signing of the foreign treaties, and underlay American 
political as well as trade policy for a century. Sometimes 
the Americans stood with the British for concerted action, 
but when the concerted action proposed by the British 
would have a tendency to weaken the Chinese merchants, 
or when the British adopted policies directly inimical to 
the American trade, the Americans were disposed to sup- 
port the Chinese. In the face of British arrogance and 
aggression the Chinese and Americans were allies. 

The Americans and the British 

As may have already been inferred, the relation of the 
Americans to the Chinese at Canton was only half the prob- 
lem. There was also the relation of the Americans to the 



54 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

representatives of the other nations. The international 
relations of the Chinese Empire were often second in im- 
portance to the international relations of the foreigners in 
China. 

The Empress of China arrived at Canton at a time when 
the Continental European trade was on the wane. Portu- 
gal retained a shadow of her former greatness at Macao, 
and Spain, dwelling indolently at Manila, carried on some 
trade with China by way of the Pacific and South America, 
but neither of these nations was aggressive at Canton. The 
"Imperialists," i.e., the Germans, still retained a company 
but it was in charge of a Scotchman who was daily expect- 
ing instructions to close out the business. French trade 
also was in a precarious situation. There was no French 
company at Canton although a consul remained, and the 
trade was being carried on by private merchants and the 
personal assistance of the king. Sweden and Denmark were 
represented only by a few private traders who derived no 
small part of their profit by smuggling tea into England. 

During the seasons from 1784 to 1790 the total number 
of foreign vessels at Canton was: Portuguese, about 14; 
Spanish, 8; Imperialists, 0; Swedish, 9; Danish, 12; French, 
10. In the same period the Dutch had 28; the English, 
106 Company and 97 'country' ships; and the Americans 
had 28. 

Major Shaw reported that the Netherlands, operating 
from Batavia as a base through the Dutch East India Com- 
pany, was, next to England, in the best commercial position 
at Canton. But the Netherlands trade labored under the 
handicap of a Company monopoly and was soon to fall foul 
of the Napoleonic wars. It was never an important factor 
in China after the Americans appeared and within a few 
years, until the restoration of peace in Europe, the Ameri- 
cans inherited practically all of it. 

To Great Britain the British East India Company es- 
tablishment at Canton was the outpost of a commercial 
empire which had been steadily advancing across Asia and 
into the Pacific since the Seven Years' War when France 



EARLY CHINA TRADE 55 

had been practically eliminated from India. To China 
England was bringing the accumulated experience of sev- 
eral decades in dealing with Oriental trade and politics, and 
the advantages of a 'half-way' station in India to which 
the English in China could appeal thus avoiding the delay 
incident to communication with London. Major Shaw re- 
corded in his journal the opinion formed on the spot that 
Great Britain apparently had the intention of monopolizing 
the trade of China. The Americans feared that the Lord 
Macartney Embassy to Peking (1793) had for its secret 
object the securing of some monopolistic or exclusive trade 
advantages from the Chinese. As early as 1816, when the 
Lord Amherst Mission to Peking was being projected it 
was common talk among the Americans at Canton that 
ultimately the English would "take possession of some place 
and make an establishment to suit their own purposes in 
spite of the Chinese" ^ — an expectation which was realized 
twenty-five years later in the occupation of Hongkong. 

The Americans appeared at Canton lacking almost 
every advantage which had belonged to the nations already 
established in the trade. Between the Atlantic seaboard 
and China by way of the Indian Ocean there was hardly 
a single safe port of refuge or of refreshment where the 
Americans might let down an anchor without permission 
of Great Britain or of some European power. Furthermore, 
while the other traders in case of difficulty might fall back 
on supplies and support relatively near at hand, at Macao, 
Manila, Batavia, or India, there was between the Ameri- 
cans at Canton and their sole base of supplies a voyage of 
at least three and perhaps six months. In addition to these 
handicaps was the inexperience and the lack of capital 
which characterized the initial adventures. 

The Americans needed friends; they could not afford to 
have any enemies. At Canton they inherited the friendly 
interest of those European powers which had looked with 
favor upon the American War of the Revolution. The 
Empress of China was introduced to Macao and Canton 
by French traders,^ some of whom had fought under Ad- 



56 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

miral Grasse in Chesapeake Bay, and the Dutch were 
equally friendly. The officials of the British East India 
Company were also personally very cordial to Major Shaw 
on his first visit, but subsequently qualified their friendli- 
ness upon orders from the Company. ''It is true," wrote 
Shaw, "that the Court of Directors in their instructions to 
the supercargoes the present season, have enjoined it upon 
them to use every endeavor to prevent the subjects of 
Great Britain from assisting or encouraging in any shape 
the American commerce." This was to the Americans a 
very serious matter as the Tory, Phineas Bond, fully real- 
ized when he wrote to Lord Carmarthen from America in 
December, 1787: "A very little matter by way of check 
would unhinge the trade and completely damage all the 
plans of those engaged in it." ^ So long as the Americans 
had reason to fear the English as something more than 
commercial competitors in a perfectly free field, that is, 
until after the close of the War of 1812, there was little 
friendliness between the Americans and the English in 
China. However, policy and wisdom required the use of 
forbearance. As Ebenezer Townsend wrote, apologetically, 
upon his arrival at Macao in 1798, after he had made his 
ceremonial call upon the commodore of the English ships 
at Typa:*^ "I suppose we were under no obligation to call 
on the Englishmen, but it is the practice." 

The Americans, notwithstanding the embarrassments 
due to the previous political activities of the European 
powers in the East and the growing jealousy of the British, 
had certain advantages in their youth, their small, less 
costly and more easily managed vessels, their freedom from 
all suspicion as plotters against the Chinese Empire, and 
their position of political neutrals in the European conflicts. 
In the ten years from the season of 1788-9 the amount of 
tea exported from Canton in other than British and Ameri- 
can vessels declined from eleven to one and one-half million 
pounds. The European trader practically disappeared. 
Meanwhile the American trade from Canton direct to Eu- 
rope and indirectly through America mounted apace. In 



EARLY CHINA TRADE 57 

1803 more than half of the tea imported to America was 
reexported to EuropeJ 

The character of the American trade in the period just 
preceding the War of 1812 may be illustrated from the 
claims submitted by a New York firm against the Danish 
Government in consequence of the capture of some Ameri- 
can vessels by Danish privateers about 1810. The claim 
for one vessel was listed as follows:^ 

Value of ship in Spanish dollars $25,000,00 

Goods shipped in Canton belonging to Min- 

turn and Champlin 9,851.07 

Cotton shipped at New York for Gothenburg $4,038.46 

Freight of same : 24,706 @ 6c 1,482.36 

Insurance on 4,038 @ 10% 403.80 5,924_.62 

Amount of freight of tea on board belonging 

to Chinese merchants at Canton, as per 

freight list and agreement, which would 

have become due had the ship arrived at 

Gothenburg 38,309.87 

Demurrage $80 per day 33,280.00 

Court charges, etc 5,000.00 



$117,365.56 



Capt. Eldridge's Adventure — 

Invoice cost at Canton $3,270.92 

Insurance @ 6% 196.26 

Insurance — New York to Gothenburg @ 

121/2% 408.87 

Freight — Canton to N. Y. and Gothenburg 1,050.00 

Interest on same for 2 years @ 6% 490.50 5,416.55 

Trimmage on goods belonging to Chinese @ 

5% 1,915.40 



$124,697.61 



In the items of the claim by the same company for 
another ship which had been similarly captured we find : 

''Amount of the cost of tea belonging to 

Houqua as per invoice $58,005.00 

Premium of insurance of same to N. Y. @ 

10% 6,455.00 

Interest on cost of same in Canton @ 15%. . 8,700.75 

Commission in New York, 5% 3,222.50 



$76,373.25 



58 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

In the same cargo with Houqua's consignment was one 
from Consequa, another hong merchant, for $32,009. 

From the above exhibit, which appears not to have been 
exceptional, we note the extent to which the Chinese mer- 
chants were trading with Europe by way of America, and 
also have some insight into the relation of the American 
merchants to both the Oriental and the Continental trade. 
The cargo of the ship Nimrod, landed in 1811 and sold in 
Copenhagen about September, 1814, consisted of sugar, 
coffee, almonds, cream of tartar, blue and yellow nankeens, 
nutmegs, cloves, mace, cassia and nankeens. Out of the 
same cargo casks of rice and Buenos Aires hides were sold 
at Kiel. In short the Americans were collecting from 
China, the Indian and the Pacific Ocean, and from South 
America, assortments of commodities and then sending 
them to Europe by transshipment from Atlantic ports, and 
were levying toll in the form of profit, commissions and 
freight, at every stage of the journey. These claims also 
reveal how precarious were the conditions under which the 
trade was being conducted. The firm submitting the 
claims had become practically insolvent because of the cap- 
ture of their vessels by Danish privateers. 

The Human Element in the Trade 

The human element in the early American relations 
with China was so very important that it is worth while to 
seek a clear understanding of it both on the Chinese and 
on the American side. 

The Chinese official was uniformly and habitually dis- 
honest. The first American ship to come to anchor at 
Whampoa was met with demands for "sing-songs" for the 
hoppo, that is, for presents to the customs officer ; no vessel 
was ever free from such demands until the inspectorate of 
maritime customs under foreign supervision was extended 
to all the ports after the treaties of 1858. Chinese and 
foreigners alike, therefore, lived in an atmosphere which 
reeked with bribery, and in which within certain broad 



EARLY CHINA TRADE 59 

limits, law went to the highest bidder. The American 
merchant had merely to charge up these items as a part 
of the cost of doing business. These charges were so 
manipulated that it was often difficult to divide with cer- 
tainty what went to the officials and what was retained by 
the hong merchant who in graft as well as in trade became 
the intermediary. Nor is it easy to assert with confidence 
where the fines imposed by the mandarins were merely 
exactions and where they were justified. For example, the 
owner of the ship Lion of New York, was charged $2000 
in 1816 for a fine "imposed by the Hoppo for suspicion of 
smuggling on board ship" which Kinqua, the hong mer- 
chant, advised the agent to pay without complaint.^ In 
general, it would appear that, after all port charges and 
regular duties had been settled, the merchants according 
to established custom, paid additional charges for the 
privileges of smuggling. 

It would be surprising to find in an atmosphere of so 
much dishonesty that the standard of commercial integrity 
was high. Opinions differed widely as to the righteousness 
of the commercial codes at Canton. Major Shaw, himself 
a man of the highest character, pronounced the commercial 
standards of the hong merchants as good as those anywhere, 
not overlooking the fact that the hong merchants were the 
better for being carefully watched. Shaw's partner, Thomas 
Randall, complained bitterly ^*^ of the dishonesty of the 
Chinese and, indeed, complaints were very common. In 
the instructions to a supercargo in 1815 we read that 
"Consequa is a liberal Chinese, but involved in debt. Bab- 
oon you must not have anything to do with." And the 
supercargo when making his report the following year re- 
marked: "It is unfortunately the case here that there is 
no man to be relied upon but Houqua and he has too much 
business." Houqua, it was asserted, charged more but he 
was reliable both as to time and as to quality. Indeed, 
Houqua's character was so well known in America that 
teas bearing his chop sold at superior prices.^^ 

As for the character of the Americans, again accounts 



60 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

differ. Probably no generalization for more than a very- 
brief number of years could safely be made. In the track 
of Shaw and Randall came a few adventurers, some by way 
of India, some from the Northwest coast, who were not to 
be trusted. As late as 1815 it as asserted that only Perkins 
and Company, whose agent was the young John P. Gushing, 
and Philip Ammidon were reliable. As typical of the 
unique position of confidence which Gushing had already 
attained not only among the Americans but also among 
the Chinese we may cite a contract between an American 
supercargo and a hong merchant in which the latter agreed 
to sell "500 chests of new Hyson tea to be put on board 
ship Lion at Whampoa at my risk and expense within two 
months from this time, said Law to pay me the market 
price. ... If the quality and price cannot be agreed be- 
tween said Law and myself . . . Mr. J. P. Gushing's opin- 
ion shall be binding." ^^ 

In the estimation of the British merchants the commer- 
cial character of the Americans was low ^^ but this estimate 
comes from men who were feeling acutely the increasing 
competition of the American trade. With the establish- 
ment of regular commission houses at Canton whose com- 
mercial relations were continuous from year to year, the 
quality of the Americans appears to have steadily improved 
until the adventurer without reputation to maintain or 
character to lose was all but eliminated. 

The character of the trade, the conditions at once des- 
potic and yet lawless, demanded the general acceptance of 
a conventional code — it would not have passed for scrupu- 
lous honesty outside of Asia^ — which would regulate con- 
tacts and prevent conflicts. If it be admitted that neither 
foreigner nor hong merchant was more honest than ex- 
pediency demanded, it must be remembered that at least 
a moderate degree of honesty in every community is essen- 
tial to the maintenance of peace, and peace was of the 
utmost importance to Chinese and foreigner alike. A 
disturbance of the peace was the cardinal sin for it meant 
a diminution of profits. 



EARLY CHINA TRADE 61 

The personal relations of the Chinese and Americans 
came to be those of mutual respect and even, in many cases, 
of affection.i^ The Americans were, for the most part, 
Yankees who had been reared in the ignorance of a color 
question, and who came to China directly and not, as the 
other foreigners, through India and Malaya, where the for- 
eigner had asserted a color supremacy and the native had 
accepted it. The Chinese are by nature wholly unlike the 
Malay or the natives of India, in that they demand by 
their personal dignity and willingness to resort to methods 
of non-intercourse, the respect of those who deal with 
them. The Americans were willing from the outset to 
grant this respect; the other foreigners were not. The 
Americans were thus again left in a preferred position in 
the^ regard of the Chinese and at a time when personal 
relationship counted for so much. They were able to 
capitalize this good will and make it yield dividends. 

So long as the American merchant in China met his 
foreign competitor unaccompanied by the strong arm of a 
European government, the American held the advantageous 
position. The moment the foreign government intervened 
the American was placed under a handicap, for while per- 
sonal relations counted with the Chinese in times of peace, 
in the face of the threat of force, the Chinese with rare 
exceptions yielded to his threatener. Perhaps it is not too 
much to conclude that American interests in China were 
never again in such good shape as they were between 1825 
and 1840 when all the foreign merchants were compelled 
to compete with each other in seeking peace and good will, 
while the Chinese Government held the whip hand over 
them. To be sure the Americans, as the others, were com- 
pelled to submit to a certain amount of injustice, but the 
injustice which the Americans suffered from the Chinese 
in the days of the early trade was as nothing to the injustice 
which the Americans suffered later when their competitors 
brought to China their armies and their navies to support 
their often arrogant and unjust pretensions. American 
trade in China owes something of its liberties to the force 



62 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

of British, French, Russian, German and Japanese arms, 
but when the balance is struck it is found that in the ag- 
gressions of other powers upon China the Americans have 
lost far more than they have received. 

Major Samuel Shaw 

One item only remains to be treated in reviewing the 
position of the early American trader at Canton — the rela- 
tion of the American Government to its citizens in China. 

The China trade of the United States at the outset was 
recognized as valuable, was heavily protected and practi- 
cally ^bsidized. This system did not disappear until 1832 
when duties on tea were removed. But to the East India 
merchant who lived in the East the Government of the 
United States could offer no protection or assistance. Upon 
his return from his first voyage Major Shaw made a report 
of the conditions at Canton and the prospects for American 
trade to John Jay, "the Honorable, the Minister of the 
United States for Foreign Affairs" of the Continental Con- 
gress. Acting upon the recommendation of Jay the 
Congress "elected" Shaw to the position of consul "at 
Canton in China." The election was, however, more of a 
tribute to Major Shaw, personally, than an effort to 
promote the trade. Shaw had a distinguished record in 
the Revolution. "Although neither salary nor perquisites 
are annexed to it," ^^ wrote Jay to Shaw, "yet so distin- 
guished a mark of confidence and esteem of the United 
States will naturally give you a degree of weight and re- 
spectability which the highest personal merit cannot very 
soon obtain for a stranger in a foreign land." 

Major Shaw regarded the appointment conscientiously 
as an opportunity to render a public service and made two 
subsequent extensive reports as consul in which he freely 
placed his knowledge of the trade at the disposal of any 
interested fellow citizen .^^ By President Washington Shaw 
was reappointed and he continued to serve until his death 
in 1794. Thomas Randall, Shaw's partner and vice-counsel, 



EARLY CHINA TRADE 63 

also made an elaborate report to Alexander Hamilton, ^^ 
with special reference to the use of specie in the trade. 

The next consul was Samuel Snow of Providence who, 
like Shaw, had first gone to Canton as a supercargo ^^ and 
then returned to establish a commission agency. Snow ar- 
rived in China toward the end of 1799 ^^ and remained 
about four years, becoming the first really resident consul. 
He did not interpret his duties so broadly as Shaw had 
done, confining himself, largely, to the care of distressed 
seamen and semi-annual reports of the vessels and cargoes 
that entered and cleared. Snow left Canton at the end of 
1804, turning over the duties of his office to Edward Car- 
rington of Providence who succeeded to the position of 
consul in 1806. Carrington served for about two years after 
which the office was vacant until 1814. The post was, how- 
ever, considered of some importance, for in 1811 George 
E. Coles wrote to Mrs. Dolly Madison: ''Dear Cousin: 
. . . While I was in Philadelphia some of the friends of 
B. C. Wilcocks, with whom I became slightly acquainted, 
requested me to recommend him as a fit person to be made 
consul for Canton in China." ^'^ Wilcocks received the 
appointment just before the close of the War of 1812 and 
served for about seven years. Throughout this period and, 
indeed, until 1854, the consul was merely a merchant whose 
only compensation was the fees of the office, the dignity 
of the position, and such information as to the business 
transactions of his competitors as would become available 
to him because of his access to official reports. 

No provision whatever was made to obtain for "the con- 
sulate the services of an interpreter. Indeed, the American 
trade at Canton was conducted for more than forty-five 
years before there was even one American citizen there 
who could read, write, understand or speak Chinese with 
any certainty. So keenly did Wilcocks feel this deficiency 
of the Americans at Canton, as well as their need for a 
resident physician, that in 1818 hero|fered, at his own ex- 
pense, to educate a suitable young man to become an inter- 
preter for the consulate.^^ He proposed to pay his expenses 



64 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

at the Anglo-Chinese school at Malacca which the mis- 
sionary William Milne had established, and suggested that 
a young physician would be the most useful. Permission 
thus to make use of this school had been secured through 
Dr. Robert Morrison, whose missionary career in China 
had been begun at the American consulate under Edward 
Carrington. 

The American share in the inauguration of Dr. Mor- 
rison's famous missionary labors is worthy of note as sup- 
plying another indication of the difference between the 
attitude of the British and the Americans towards the 
Chinese. Dr. Morrison had been refused permission to 
take passage from London for China in an East India Com- 
pany ship and therefore came to the United States in 1807. 
From New York, May 12, 1807, Morrison sailed for China, 
carrying a letter from Secretary of State Madison to Con- 
sul Carrington "requesting him to do all that he can, con- 
sistently with the interests of his country" ^" to assist the 
missionary. For several months after his arrival in China 
Morrison lived in the factory of Mr. Carrington and was 
known as an American because he did not dare to acknowl- 
edge his British citizenship. The British had brought from 
India a policy which involved the withholding from the 
Chinese such benefits of the western world as would enable 
them to meet the foreigners on equal terms. The Ameri- 
cans, from the earlier days, never shared in such a policy. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

1. Shaw's Journal is incomparably the best contemporary American 

source for the beginnings of American trade in China. 

2. "Embassy to the Eastern Courts of Cochin-China, Siam, and 

Muscat," by Edmund Roberts (New York, 1837), p. 165. 

3. William Law Papers (New York Pub. Lib. Mss.) Letter written 

by Law to N. Y. correspondents, Nov. 21, 1816. 

4. 3 Dip. Cor. pp. 767-8, Sept. 1, 1785, John Jay to Continental 

Congress, recommending that Jefferson at Paris be instructed 
to express the appreciation of the American Government for 
the courtesies shown to Major Shaw at Canton. For the inter- 
esting subsequent correspondence which took place in Paris, 
see Americanistes et Frangais a Canton au XVIII'^ Siecle, by 



EARLY CHINA TRADE 65 

Henri Cordier, in Journal de la Societe des Americanistes de 
Paris (Paris, 1898). M. de Vergennes, Minister of Foreign 
Affairs, seized the opportunity thus afforded to protest against 
the protective measures inimical to French commerce which 
had been adopted by various American states. 

5. Letters of Phineas Bond. 

6. Voyage of the Neptune. 

7. Pitkin's "Commerce of the U. S." (1816). 

8. William Law Papers. 
9.. Ibid. 

10. Alexander Hamilton Papers, Vol. 12, pp. 1551ff; Aug. 14, 1791, 

Randall to Hamilton (Lib. of Congress). 

11. William Law Papers. 

12. Ibid. 

13. See, for example, Majoribank's testimony. Sessional Papers, 1821, 

Vol. 7. ^ 

14. Hunter's "Fan Kwae" embodies the prevailing spirit of the 

Americans towards the Chinese. 

15. 3 Dip. Cor. p. 769, Jan. 30, 1786, Jay to Shaw. 

16. Appendices, Shaw's Journal. 

17. Alexander Hamilton Papers (see supra, Note 10.). 

18. Kimball's East India Trade of Providence. 

19. Canton Consular Letters. 

20. Madison Papers, June 10, 1811, George E. Coles to Mrs. D. P. 

Madison (N. Y. Pub. Lib.). 

21. Misc. Letters (Dept. of State) July 4, 1818, C. J. IngersoU to 

J. Q. Adams. 

22. "Memoirs of the Life and Labors of Robert Morrison" (2 vols. 

London 1849), Vol. 1, p. 106ff. 



PART II 
THE FIRST TREATY WITH CHINA 



CHAPTER IV 

THE FOUNDATION OF AMEEICAN POLICY IN ASIA 

The early American policy in Asia, meaning merely the 
policy of early Americans for there was no other policy, was 
purely negative in its origins. It appeared only when there 
was opposition or obstruction to the trade. Where trade 
was free there was no policy. Where there was a policy its 
weight was in direct ratio to the desire of the Americans 
for the trade. 

There never was an American political policy in the 
Indian Ocean. The trade was either free or was open to 
Americans on equal or on more favorable terms than those 
enjoyed by their competitors. England took possession of 
the Isle de France in 1810. The War of 1812 destroyed 
the trade with British India, and the tariff of 1816 put a 
curb on its reestablishment. Economic necessity — the gen- 
eral poverty of the States and the need for Indian produce — 
had forced the Americans into the Indian Ocean trade, and 
the steady growth of wealth and industry in the United 
States reduced the necessity for such adventures. The 
profits which at the beginning had been steadier and more 
certain than those in the China trade, declined and suffered 
in the competition with British produce. The United 
States had little produce to send to India and as for specie, 
it yielded a better return at Canton. Furthermore, the 
China trade had the advantage of the protection and as- 
sistance of the Government of the United States. The 
term 'East India trade' came more and more to mean the 
Canton trade. 

Because there had been opposition and obstruction to 
the American trade in the Pacific Ocean there had been a 
policy in those regions. However, it was the purely nega- 

69 



70 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

tive one of keeping the trade routes and the markets open. 
The Americans declined to be excluded from the Northwest 
coast and would have opposed any curtailment of their 
rights at Honolulu had any measures of obstruction been 
adopted. But the fur trade ceased to be a factor in the 
Far Eastern trade after 1820. The whale fisheries entered 
the North Pacific but they did not immediately create a 
new link in the chain of commerce with Asia. By the fur 
trade Americans had been taught to look upon the Pacific 
Ocean and the Sandwich Islands in relation to the Asiatic 
trade ^ but it was not until the settlement of the Pacific 
Coast of the United States, the development of Shanghai 
and the opening of Japan, that American policy in Asia 
came again to include the Pacific Ocean. Meanwhile 
American policy in the Far East merely meant the policy 
of the Americans at Canton. 

The Americans at Canton had but one desire — to keep 
the trade open to Americans on terms as favorable as, or 
more favorable than, those enjoyed by their competitors 
who were chiefly British. A brief review of the trade from 
the close of the War of 1812 until the outbreak of hostilities 
between the British and the Chinese in 1839 is therefore 
in order. 

Review of Trade: 1815-1839 

The period is characterized by three facts: the consoli- 
dation of commerce in the hands of a very few wealthy 
firms and commission houses ; the establishment of a system 
of exchange by which bills on London were substituted for 
specie; and the introduction of manufactured goods, first 
British and then American, which altered the relations of 
the Americans to the China trade and made them begin to 
regard China as a limitless market in which to sell rather 
than as a limited market in which to buy. 

The earliest American trade at Canton had been con- 
ducted by supercargoes who travelled with the vessels. The 
next step in commercial organization was the establishment 
of permanent firms which either dealt on commission or 



THE FOUNDATION OF AMERICAN POLICY IN ASIA 71 

represented directly some mercantile house the headquar- 
ters of which was in the United States. Shaw and Randall 
beginning as supercargoes, established a firm to engage in 
commission business, as well as in the transaction of their 
personal ventures. The Columbia and the Lady Washing- 
ton when setting out for the Northwest coast were con- 
signed to Shaw and Randall. This firm, however, was soon 
dissolved because of the death of Shaw, and seems never 
to have thoroughly established itself. Samuel Snow of 
Providence who succeded Shaw as consul established him- 
self in Canton about 1800 as a resident commission agent, 
presumably giving special attention to the requirements of 
the Providence merchants. He, also, had begun as a super- 
cargo on the Ann and Hope of Providence in 1795. Thomas 
H. Perkins and Company of Boston established a branch in 
1803, in charge of John P. Cushing, a youth of sixteen. 
This firm, while primarily transacting the Perkins business, 
also engaged in a commission trade. B. C. Wilcocks of 
Philadelphia became a resident commission agent and in 
time became the third American consul. Daniel Stansbury 
of Baltimore became agent for the New York firm of 
Minturn and Champlin. Nicholas G. Ogden and Cornelius 
Sowle represented John Jacob Astor. Philip Ammidon with 
Providence connections, and Samuel Russell of Middle- 
town, Connecticut, who had begun commercial life as a 
supercargo out of Providence appeared as residents at 
Canton. Thus the commercial life of the American com- 
munity developed. 

Gradually the supercargo disappeared from the Ameri- 
can vessels and his work was done by the resident commis- 
sion agent. One hears very little of supercargoes after 
1815. Following the close of the War of 1812 further or- 
ganization and differentiation of the trade took place. The 
firm of Samuel Russell and Company, of which the partners 
were Russell and Ammidon, Edward Carrington, Cyrus 
Butler, and B. and T. C. Hoppin of Providence, was formed 
in December, 1818, the two first named being designated 
to represent the firm in Canton for five years.^ At the end 



72 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

of this period the firm was reorganized under the name of 
Russell and Company, with the approval and help of the 
house of Perkins, which retired from Canton three years 
later. The Russell house was further consolidated by the 
incorporation of some smaller firms and came to occupy a 
financial position in China comparable with that of the 
famous British firms. For many years it handled only a 
commission business although many of the partners acting 
as individuals, were also merchants. Olyphant and Com- 
pany at Canton was organized in 1828 out of the ruins of 
the firm of Thomas H. Smith by D. W. C. Olyphant who 
had served an apprenticeship in New York, Baltimore, and 
then in Canton as the supercargo and agent of Smith. ^ This 
firm came to occupy a position second only to that of Rus- 
sell and Company, until Augustine Heard, leaving the Rus- 
sell firm, established the house which long bore his name. 
The only other important firm was that of W. S. Wetmore. 
It is significant that out of the much larger number of 
American merchants who came to and departed from Can- 
ton, only these firms, Russell, Olyphant, Heard and Wet- 
more, survived the competition of decades. Some, like 
John C. Cushing, retired with wealth ; others failed grandly 
and left only pitiful derelicts. 

The effect of this consolidation of American interests 
was to stabilize business, and to increase the influence of 
the surviving merchants in their dealings with both the 
Chinese and with the other foreigners. 

The establishment of a system of exchange, by which 
bills on London were substituted for specie, came before 
1830 as a result of the increased commercial relationship 
between the United States and England, and the growth 
of the opium trade. 

A part of the American trade with China was financed 
from London even before 1800. Shortly after 1815 Ameri- 
can merchants began to buy British manufactured goods, 
chiefly cottons, in the English market, and to take them to 
China where they were able to sell them cheaper than the 
East India Company.^ Agents of the Company complained 



THE FOUNDATION OF AMERICAN POLICY IN ASIA 73 

that the American goods were not only of inferior quality, 
even those which had been rejected by the Company in 
London, but that the Americans even went so far as to 
adopt a 'chop' (trade-mark) so closely representing that 
of the Company as to deceive the purchaser. These 
charges could hardly be controverted. The effect of this 
trade in British manufactured goods was to make London 
a clearing house for a considerable amount of European 
and China trade which had formerly been settled either in 
Canton or Europe by payments of specie. Meanwhile the 
opium trade from India to China increased to the point 
where China was consuming more foreign produce than the 
value of the tea, silks, etc., which the foreigner was taking 
out of China. China settled the balance against her in 
silver. The Empire had become, by means of opium, a 
buying more than a selling nation. More and more the 
Americans came to Canton not with specie but with bills 
on London which they disposed of in return for their out- 
ward cargoes. In other words, by taking out Chinese 
produce, and settling the account in London, they helped 
the Chinese to adjust the balance of trade. Importation 
of specie from America was reduced 80 per cent in the years 
1831-40, over the previous decade.^ 

The influence of this new development of the trade was 
in the direction of the identification of American and Brit- 
ish interests in China. There was, however, a check on this 
influence. 

The import of foreign merchandise in American vessels 
into China reached its highest point in 1825 when it was 
valued at nearly $5,500,000. In that year the value of the 
domestic produce sent from the United States to China was 
$160,000 although three years before the sum had ap- 
proached half a million. In 1826 the invoices show the 
beginning of the exportation to China of American cottons 
to the extent of about $15,000.® This trade in American 
domestics increased steadily and in ten years had risen to 
$170,000. In 1838 it passed the half million dollar mark. 
Meanwhile the Americans were bringing away from China 



74 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

less and less nankeens and silks, and were also taking less 
and less British manufactured goods into China. 

American domestics, coarse grades of white and printed 
cottons, grew in popularity and successfully met the British 
competition. In nine months from October 1, 1842, to July 
1, 1843, the United States exported to China domestic 
produce to the value of more than $1,700,000, and two years 
later passed the two million dollar mark; meanwhile the 
Americans had reduced their importations of British and 
European produce into China to less than $200,000. True 
the Americans were still taking from China very much more 
produce than they were bringing to it ; in the decade ending 
with 1840 the imports into China amounted to not quite 
$13,000,000 and the exports from China were $61,000,000. 
But the Americans had had a glimpse of Asia as a market 
for American manufactured goods, and that glimpse in- 
fluenced the policy of Americans and guided the formation 
of the policy of their government.'^ 

After 1840 American policy in Asia was always directed 
with an eye to the future — to the day when Americans 
would supply the seemingly limitless markets of the East. 
Meanwhile the doors to these markets must be kept open. 
This was as much the policy of Americans in 1840 as it was 
American policy eighty years later. 

One other fact of the trade development may be men- 
tioned although its importance at the time was greatly 
overestimated. At the close of the War of 1812 the Ameri- 
cans resumed their China trade with a rush. The volume 
of trade, exports and imports together, mounted from 
$7,000,000 to about $19,000,000 in four years. In the sea- 
son 1817-8 the gross amount of the American imports and 
exports at Canton actually exceeded those of the British 
East India Company, while the American tonnage em- 
ployed was 18,000 as compared with 21,000 for th§ British. 
But the Americans were speculating and paid dearly. The 
tonnage employed in the decade ending with 1840 showed 
an actual decrease over that in the previous decade. The 
total British trade in 1830 was $43,000,000 as compared 



THE FOUNDATION OF AMERICAN POLICY IN ASIA 75 

with $3,500,000 for the Americans; in 1840 the American 
exports to and imports from China were only $7,000,000. 
It is obvious that American commercial relations with China 
were valued not so much because of their present returns as 
for their future possibilities. 

With these facts as to the growth of the trade in mind 
we pass to a consideration of the relation of the American 
Government to its citizens in China from 1800 until the 
beginning of the agitation for a treaty, i.e. after the dis- 
solution of the East India Company monopoly in 1834. 

w 

Relation of United States Government to American 
Citizens in China 

The consul was not an imposing functionary. The com- 
mon affairs of the American community were usually 
ordered in what was really a 'town meeting' over which the 
consul, as a courtesy, was asked to preside. The rights of 
the minority were amply safeguarded in these meetings, for 
the individual was subject to no law save that of expedi- 
ency. The consul administered the estate of the dead, dis- 
ciplined mutinous sailors and cared for such of them as 
could not care for themselves, but he lacked even the au- 
thority to demand accurate trade reports from the captains 
and supercargoes. "The secret manner of transacting busi- 
ness at Canton," wrote Samuel Snow to Secretary of State 
Pickering (November 9, 1800) in response to a request for a 
trade report, "made it almost impossible to obtain any 
accurate knowledge of the cargoes in the common way. 
. . . On that account my note to the different captains 
bordered as closely on a demand as the nature of the thing 
would admit of, and the reports have come in more full 
than I had even expected myself." The only emoluments of 
the consular office were the fees which, up to 1836, had 
rarely exceeded $500. 

The relation of the consul to the Chinese authorities 
abounded in absurdities. They called the consul the chief 
'tai-pan' (supercargo). Theoretically they did not recog- 



76 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

nize him at all, and yet actually they looked to him to 
exercise over his countrymen as despotic a control as any 
Chinese official similarly placed would not hesitate to em- 
ploy. The chairman of the Select Committee of the East 
India Company, and the French consul, unlike the American 
official, did possess very extensive powers both judicial and 
executive. To complicate matters still more the Chinese, 
reasoning from the analogy of their own governmental 
practice, assumed as a matter of course that the American 
officials, like their own, were corrupt and dependent for 
advancement and wealth upon methods such as their own 
officials uniformly employed. Furthermore the consul 
shared the contempt with which the Chinese authorities 
looked upon all traders. The Chinese regarded men who 
would desert their homes and the tombs of their ancestors 
to reside in a foreign land for the purposes of trade as singu- 
larly degraded. A Chinese merchant, similarly placed, 
would at once be violating the law and forfeiting all privi- 
leges of protection from his government. 

The insecurity of the Americans during the trying period 
before 1815 led them to petition Congress for a more 
efficient consular establishment.* 

The petition stated : 

"The consul of the United States residing here has not the means 
of being sufficiently useful to his countrymen with their intercourse 
with the Chinese Government, and of supporting the dignity of the 
flag of which he has charge; in consequence of which it frequently 
happens that impositions are placed upon the memorialists that are 
avoided by the citizens or subjects of other nations whose representa- 
tives have the means to oppose with firmness and effect the first 
attempts which, if successfully repelled, are seldom renewed ; but when 
once a new imposition has been submitted to, it is considered an estab- 
lished custom, and demanded as a right from the nation that has 
yielded." 

*The date of this petition, whieb is found in the first volume of Canton 
Consular Letters, is unknown. From the signatures attached to it, it would 
appear that it could not have been later than 1815 and it may have been pre- 
pared as early as 1806. Dr. Robert Morrison, who embarked for China from 
New York in the spring of 1807, mentions the movement then under way to 
secure better protection for the consul at Canton, and two years later President 
Jefferson received an application from Judge A. B. Woodward who wished a 
commission to represent the United States diplomatically In China, with power 
to negotiate a treaty.^ 



THE FOUNDATION OF AMERICAN POLICY IN ASIA 77 

The petitioners asked for a consul, unconnected with the 
trade, at a salary of $3,000 and residence. They also urged 
the appointment of an experienced physician to care for 
the sailors, with the liberty to engage in private practice. 
Allowances were also requested to pay for a linguist or for 
the cost of translating documents. 

To this appeal there appears to have been no response 
from the Government of the United States. 

The nearest to an official opinion on American policy at 
this time is to be found in the correspondence of Thomas 
Jefferson, at the time of the Embargo. The incident also 
throws some light on the conditions under which its China 
trade in those days was conducted. A Chinese merchant, 
then in New York, wished to return to China while the 
embargo was in operation. He appealed to President Jef- 
ferson, even going to Washington to see him. The President 
wrote to Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury, enclos- 
ing a blank passport for the vessel which the Chinese mer- 
chant agreed to provide for himself, saying: ^ 

"1 enclose Mr. Madison's letter which contains everything I know 
on the subject. I consider it a case of national comity, and coming 
within the views of the first section of the first embargo act. The 
departure of this individual with good disposition may be the means 
of making our nation known advantageously at the source of power 
in China, to which it is otherwise difficult to convey inforraation." 

A few weeks later President Jefferson wrote with refer- 
ence to the same matter: 

"The opportunity hoped from that, of making known through one 
of its own characters of note, our nation, our circumstances and char- 
acter, and of letting that government understand at length the differ- 
ence between us and the English, and separate us in its policy, ren- 
dered that measure a diplomatic one, in my view, and likely to bring 
lasting advantage to our merchants and commerce with that country." 

This, the first expression of opinion from so high a 
source, correctly stated a policy with reference to China 
which remained fundamental in American dealings with 
China long into the future, although it showed few results 
for at least another half century. It was difficult for the 



78 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

Chinese to differentiate between the two English-speaking 
nations, and consequently the English and the Americans 
were accustomed to bear each other's sins. 

Unhappily President Jefferson was, in this incident, the 
innocent victim of a shrewd hoax. When the New York 
merchants picked up the Commercial Advertiser of August 
13, 1808, they learned that the distinguished mandarin was 
none other than a dock loafer who had come to the United 
States in a recent ship from China. Their displeasure was 
still further increased by the fact that the vessel on which 
he had returned to China the day before was the Beaver, 
belonging to their enterprising competitor, John Jacob 
Astor. 

The merchants officially protested to President Jef- 
ferson. The Commercial Advertiser made it the sub- 
ject of an acid editorial. In a public letter Astor defied 
the protestants offering to prove that the President had not 
been deceived. However, the ship did belong to Astor, and 
Picqua, the so-called mandarin, probably had no more influ- 
ence in Peking than did his ambitious patron. Meanwhile 
the Beaver was able to get in an extra voyage to Canton, 
while other American ships were tied up by the unpopular 
embargo. Astor was reported to have made no less than 
$200,000 by the voyage.^*' 

After the resignation of B. C. Wilcocks in 1821 the con- 
sular office was filled only in a haphazard way until the 
appointment of Peter W. Snow of Providence, son of the 
second consul (1835). One consul died shortly after his 
appointment ; his successor served less than two years owing 
to the failure of the firm with which he was connected, and 
the third appointee in the interim, although holding the 
appointment for ten years, never lived during that time at 
Canton. In fact, during the first fifty years of American 
trade relations with China, the total terms of service ren- 
dered by regularly appointed consuls continuously resident 
at Canton was only fourteen years. In the intervals the 
duties of the office were discharged, if at all, by some mer- 
chant who was either delegated by the person holding 



THE FOUNDATION OF AMERICAN POLICY IN ASIA 79 

the office or who voluntarily assumed the responsibili- 
ties. 

That the American Government was not, however, en- 
tirely unconscious of the presence of its citizens in China, 
or regardless of the value of the trade, is evident from the 
fact that at various times naval protection was proposed. 
As a result of the depredations of the French privateers and 
naval vessels, the United States ship Congress was sent to 
the Far East in May, 1800.^ ^ This vessel reached Batavia 
and cruised in .the Straights of Sunda for two months. She 
offered homeward convoy to fifteen American merchant- 
men. In 1815 the United States sloop Peacock was sent to 
the East Indies to protect American shipping and to prey 
upon the British trade. She also reached Batavia and cap- 
tured four English merchantmen, all after the declaration 
of peace, but never reached Canton. Four years later the 
Congress, fitted out to protect the China trade from pirates 
and to afford a practice cruise, dropped anchor at Lintin 
(November 3, 1819), some forty miles below the mouth of 
the Canton, or Pearl River. The Chinese authorities 
promptly refused to allow the frigate to be supplied with 
provisions, and through the hong merchants issued a 
demand to the consul that the Congress leave immediately. 
This was the customary Chinese method for dealing with 
visits of foreign naval vessels. Only three years before H. 
M. S. Alceste, attached to the Lord Amherst Embassy, had 
been similarly treated and had defied the Chinese, forcing its 
way up to Whampoa. Captain Henley of the Congress 
would have liked to do the same, but greatly to the relief 
of the American merchants he restrained himself. Had he 
disobeyed the orders of the mandarins the American trade 
would probably have been stopped. There is no more 
certain index to the character of the policy of Americans in 
Canton at that time than the fact that the presence of an 
American naval vessel was an embarrassment. 

Although Captain Henley was hospitably entertained at 
the factories when he went up to Canton in a merchant 
vessel he was made to feel that his official services were not 



80 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

desired. In the spring, when he offered to convoy the 
American vessels down through the Straits the offer was 
decHned by the merchants and captains who feared that such 
assistance would be offensive to the Chinese. 

Subsequently on several occasions American naval 
vessels visited the mouth of the river. By the Chinese 
authorities they were always ordered away, and by the 
Americans they were welcomed only with apprehensions. 
The American had no desire whatever for a 'gun-boat' 
policy; it could only create ill feeling among the Chinese, 
and it would interfere with the trade. 

We may now review the policy of the American mer- 
chants in meeting the irritations which arose out of the 
contacts with other foreign powers at Canton, and out of 
the impositions of the Chinese authorities. 

Relations with the Portuguese and English 

The Portuguese Governor of Macao in 1803 was unwill- 
ing to admit the American consul to residence at Macao 
during the summer months, an awkward and discriminating 
action, in view of the fact that no foreigner was allowed to 
remain at Canton after the close of the trade.* 

The Americans solved the difficulty by violating the rule 
of the Chinese, making, doubtless, a few presents to the 
officials, and living at the factories during the summer, until 
the Macao authorities were persuaded to extend a freer 
hospitality. Major Shaw, the first American consul, had 
established the precedent by spending the summer of 1787 
at Canton with the supercargo of the Columbia and another 
American. Indeed the Americans seem never, at that time, 
to have been very careful about such rules. Captain Cleve- 
land reports with reference to this custom of moving to 
Macao in the summer: "This routine has of late years been 
broken by the disregard of etiquette and the established 
seasons on the part of the Americans who, coming and 

*There was no treaty between the United States and Portugal at that time. 



THE FOUNDATION OF AMERICAN POLICY IN ASIA 81 

going all the year round, have inverted all the ancient rules 
of doing business at Canton.^- 

The troubles with the British authorities were much 
more serious both for the Americans and for the English. 
As early as the season of 1804-5 the first clash came over 
the desertion of British seamen to American ships, and the 
British insistence on the right of search. Desertion in those 
days was a very serious matter, for there was no ready 
labor supply at Canton from which to draw to fill the vacant 
place. An Indiaman required a crew of about 130, and it 
was not to be expected that the British captains would view 
with indifference the escape of their men to American ships, 
sometimes with the active solicitation of the American cap- 
tain and the promise of higher wages and a bonus. Captain 
Cleveland states, in describing a voyage he fitted out from 
Canton to the Northwest coast of North America in 1799: 
"Most of my men were deserters from the Indiamen; and 
they were generally the worst of a bad lot." To this practice 
was added the claims of the British war-ships which came to 
Canton each year to convoy the returning East India Com- 
pany fleet, of the right to take from American ships any of 
the crew who were unable to give indisputable proof of their 
American citizenship, and in case of necessity, to take them 
anyway. 

Towards the end of the year 1804 H. M. SS. Caroline and 
Grampus began to search American ships and when they left 
Chinese waters carried two American seamen with them, 
despite the protests of Carrington. The commander of the 
Caroline replied to the consul's protest: 

"In reply to your letter of yesterday, requesting the discliage of 
three men from His Britannic Majesty's ship under my command, 
calling themselves subjects of the United States of America, to which 
you sign yourself consular agent : — 

"I am to inform you that all such solicitations must be made to the 
Lords of the Admiralty in England, as without orders from them no 
man can be discharged by a Captain of the British Navy." 

These passages between the Americans and the British, 
in which the fault was by no means exclusively on one side, 



82 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

continued. In November, 1807, the Topaz of Baltimore was 
boarded by British naval forces at Whampoa, and the cap- 
tain of the Topaz was shot. The ship was seized, her specie 
confiscated, and the ship was sent to Bombay as a prize, on 
the ground that the Topaz had been engaged in piracy off 
the coast of South America. 

The American brig Rambler of Boston, a letter of marque 
vessel, captured the English Arabella of Calcutta, in 1814, 
and in distress was forced to put in at Macao with her 
prize. The captain of the Rambler directed the prize to be 
anchored under the guns of the Portuguese fort, whereupon 
the Governor of Macao ordered her to leave the harbor, 
although she was without provisions and proper ballast. In 
the course of the dispute a Portuguese crew took the 
Arabella out and anchored her near the British fleet. 
The British forthwith took possession of the vessel. Consul 
Wilcocks complained bitterly to James Monroe, Secretary 
of State, not merely at the ''flagrant outrage" committed 
by Robert O'Brien, Esq., commander of H. M. S. Doris, and 
of the "pusillanimous conduct of the Governor of Macao" 
but also of the fact that the Portuguese had been permitting 
the British officers to live at Macao whence they had gone 
out to attack many American ships. 

The Chinese took a hand in the quarrel between the 
Americans and the British, demanding that the superintend- 
ent of the East India Company send away H. M. S. Doris, 
after she had chased an American ship up to Whampoa and 
captured her there at the anchorage. The Doris had also 
captured an American ship, the Hunter, off the Ladrone 
Islands and brought her to Chinese waters as a prize. 
When the superintendent replied that he had no authority 
over the English men-of-war and could not order them 
away, the Chinese ordered the servants away from the Eng- 
lish factories, and threatened to stop the trade. The Eng- 
lish, in turn, withdrew from Canton, and in the end the 
Chinese gave way. In the agreement between the Chinese 
and the English in which this controversy was settled, it 
was stipulated that in the future the Americans should not 



THE FOUNDATION OF AMERICAN POLICY IN ASIA 83 

be permitted to dispose of prize-goods in the Canton market. 
This provision was inserted because both the Rambler and 
the Jacob Jones, another American letter of marque, had 
brought to Canton no less than $10,000 in specie, forty 
chests of opium, and some piece goods, all captured from 
English ships, and with the loot purchased outward cargoes. 
While American trade with Canton was all but paralyzed 
during the War of 1812, nevertheless a system of parole was 
estabhshed in 1814 by which American sailors were returned 
to the consul by the captain of H. M. S. Doris, on condition 
that they would promise not to take up arms against the 
English navy. Meanwhile the displeasure of the Chinese 
at the British disregard of their port regulations operated to 
the benefit of the Americans. 

Relations with the Chinese Government 

From the very beginning of the trouble with the English 
in 1804 the Americans realized that there were only two 
possible sources of protection for them; their own govern- 
ment, or the Chinese, and they knew full well that no help 
was possible from the United States naval forces. There- 
fore Carrington wrote to Captain Ratsey of H. M. Brig 
Harrier, October 14, 1805: 

"Should the demand which I have made to you not be complied 
with, I shall make a formal representation and appeal to the Chinese 
Government of this unprecedented and outrageous violence against 
the rights of nations." 

There being no satisfactory response to this demand, 
Carrington called together the American merchants, super- 
cargoes and captains, and laid the case before them. As a 
result of this meeting a formal representation was drawn up 
and signed by the consul and twenty-seven other Americans. 
It was addressed to "His Excellency, John Tuck, Governor 
of the Province of Canton." The acknowledgements of and 
concessions to Chinese authority which were made in this 
document were an expression of the fundamental principle 



84 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

which guided the American merchants in their dealings with 
the Chinese for the next fifteen or more years, and which 
at least some of the American merchants at Canton, even 
after the opening of the five ports in 1844, were slow to 
discard. After reciting the facts with reference to the con- 
troversy with Captain Ratsey, and stating that if the 
English officer carried out his threat to come to Whampoa 
and search American ships anchored there, the American 
captains had decided to repel his visits with force of arms, 
if necessary, the representation further stated: 

"The undersigned further respectfully represent to your Excel- 
lency that the citizens of the United States have for many years 
visited the city of Canton in the pursuit of honest commerce, that 
their conduct during the vphole period of intercourse has been regu- 
lated by a strict regard and respect for the hiws and usages of this 
Empire, as well as the general law of nations, and that by their 
fidelity in trade, and their t>eaceable demeanor, the most perfect har- 
mony, confidence, and good understanding has ever been maintained 
between the subjects of this country and the citizens of the United 
States, from which has flowed a very extensive and rapidly increasing 
commerce, mutually advantageous and honorable to both parties ; 

"That by the ancient and well established laws and usages of all 
civilized nations, the persons and property of friendly foreigners 
within the territory and jurisdiction of a sovereign and independent 
Empire, are under the special protection of the government thereof, 
and any violence or indignity offered to such persons or to the flag 
of the nation to which they belong, is justly considered as done to the 
government within whose territory the outrage is committed; 

"That by the same law of nations, the civil and military agents 
of the government are strictly prohibited from assuming any authority 
whatever within the territory of the other nor can they seize the per- 
son of the highest state criminal, who may have eluded the justice of 
their own! 

"How great, then, is the outrage and indignity which has been 
committed in the port of Canton, upon the citizens and the national 
character of the United States ! . . . The undersigned, therefore, with 
the highest respect and deference, pray your Excellency to exercise 
that power and justice with which you are clothed, as well as to cause 
the American seamen to be restored, as also to secure them from any 
aggression of the kind in the future within the territory of China, 
which they presume, unquestionably extends to the seas which bound 
its shores." 

It is difficult to know whether this memorial, with its 
sweeping concessions as to the jurisdiction of Chinese 



THE FOUNDATION OF AMERICAN POLICY IN ASIA 85 

authority, was ever seen by the Governor of the province. 
Carrington wrote to James Madison, November 25, 1805: 

"As the Chinese Government does not recognize foreign ministers 
or consuls, I consider it advisable to join the American merchants 
residing at Canton, and the supercargoes and the commanders of the 
American ships, with me in the representation; hoping it would have 
the desired influence with the several security merchants to encourage 
them to present the same to their government, and give our complaints 
their full force." 

At any rate, the hong merchants replied that their gov- 
ernment would not take cognizance of disputes between 
foreigners although they arose within Chinese territory, a 
principle which, however, China did not follow consistently. 
Nevertheless it is quite likely that the Chinese authorities 
were entirely familiar with the contents of the memorial, 
and fifteen years later, in accordance with it as well as with 
their own desire, they claimed jurisdiction over the Ameri- 
can ships at Whampoa in the Terranova case. 

It could hardly be expected that this policy of non-inter- 
course upon which the Chinese Government insisted, would 
work out exclusively to the disadvantage of the foreigners, 
and there were not a few occasions when the fictitious ar- 
rangements were brushed aside by the Chinese themselves. 
A Philadelphia merchant sued Houqua, the famous hong 
merchant, in a Pennsylvania court for failure to keep his 
engagements in 1818 as to the quality of tea and obtained a 
judgment for $25,000. How the defendant was represented 
in this suit or by what means the judgment was collected 
is not known. ^^ The plaintiff, however, was shortly after 
the trial revealed as a notorious smuggler who became insol- 
vent, owing the government more than three quarters of a 
million dollars in duties. 

Several of the hong merchants were reported to have 
been in much embarrassment because of the extent to which 
they had supplied the American traders on credit. Houqua, 
afterwards so friendly to some American firms, was at that 
time extensively involved in these transactions and learned 
to become more discriminating in his extensions of credit. 



86 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

One merchant, Consequa, who was reported to have lost 
$1,000,000 in credit transactions with Americans, even went 
so far as to address a memorial to ''His Excellency, James 
Madison, President of the United States of America, or to 
the President of the United States for the time being." He 
stated that he had been led, after years of extensive dealings 
with the Americans, to give them long credits, although it 
was against the laws of the Empire. While trade was flour- 
ishing he had heard no complaints, and the losses had not 
been greater than he could well bear, but more recently he 
had had many unhappy experiences with the American 
traders. Some of the Americans, he stated, had not only 
declined to pay, offering frivolous excuses, but had even 
applied the capital to other branches of their business. 
Consequa recites: ^^ 

"When such debtors come, or reside in China, they cannot claim 
the aid of the laws of the imperial dynasty on their behalf. They 
[the laws] prohibit such confidence as he [Consequa] has placed in 
the subjects of the United States, and he would not presume to avow 
to the chief of a great nation, that he has infringed the laws of his 
own empire, but in the full consciousness that he has been guilty of 
no disloyal or injurious act or intention toward it, whilst to honorable 
minds he thinks his China would be strengthened by this circumstance 
[business with foreigners]. 

"He does not presume to solicit your Excellency's protection and 
consideration, but in so far as may be in accord with justice and the 
laws of the United States, they being so far and so greatly celebrated 
for their equal protection of the rich and the poor, and for their 
dealing equal measure to their citizens and to those of aliens, but he 
does ask for your protection and countenance in asserting and claim- 
ing his rights in conformity to your laws and where an appeal to 
courts of justice becomes necessary, that the forms and proceedings 
which have been devised for the security of man, may not be allowed 
to be wrested to his injury, a perversion to which the best are liable." 

Consequa appointed a representative to present his 
petition, ^nd supphed him with the necesssary proofs and 
papers to show his losses. 

Terranova Incident 

This policy of submitting to Chinese authority found 
its most famous expression in the well known "Terranova 



THE FOUNDATION OF AMERICAN POLICY IN ASIA 87 

case." ^^ Francis Terranova, an illiterate Italian seaman 
from the Emily, of Baltimore, was accused at the beginning 
of the season of 1821 of having caused the death of a boat- 
woman who had come up to the Emily to trade with the 
sailors. The consul attempted to settle the matter by the 
offer of a liberal payment to the relatives of the boat-woman 
but the captain of the Emily took matters into his own 
hands and, backed by the majority of the American commu- 
nity, was disposed to fight the case. The Chinese assumed 
jurisdiction and although the Americans were persuaded 
that the sailor was not guilty, and that the Chinese could 
not be trusted to give a fair trial, yielded. The unfortunate 
sailor was tried by Chinese authorities on board the Emily, 
found guilty, and the Americans were ordered to surrender 
him for punishment. The Americans demurred, the trade 
was stopped, the ship's security merchant, who owed large 
sums to Americans, was arrested, and the Americans found 
themselves confronted by a necessity. The holding of the 
security merchants might mean the financial ruin of his 
American creditors. Terranova was surrendered, and a few 
days later he was strangled, notwithstanding promises to 
the contrary and notwithstanding the provision of Chinese 
law making manslaughter punishable only by a small fine.^^ 
Before the sailor was taken from the Emily a group of 
American merchants drew up a statement of the case and 
presented it to Houqua to give to the Chinese authorities. 
In it they said: ^'^ 

"We consider the case prejudiced. We are bound to submit to 
your laws while we are in your waters, be they ever so unjust. We 
will not resist them. You have followed your ideas of justice, and 
have condemned the man unheard. But the flag of our country has 
never been disgraced. It now waves over you. It is no disgrace to 
submit to your power, surrounded as you are by overwhelming force, 
backed up by a great Empire. You have the power to compel us." 

This bombastic declaration, amazing as it would seem, 
issued by any group of Americans, is still more remarkable 
when one remembers that those who signed it were among 
the most fearless sea-captains and pioneers that the United 



88 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

States had ever produced. It shows how completely the 
Chinese held the foreigners in their power by'meansof the 
one weapon — stopping the trade. But it shows more than 
that. It reflects the opinion of the day in American history 
when 'national honor' was far more loosely defined than it 
is today. More than twelve years later the North American 
Review, in commenting on the incident^ said: 

"But as a question in the law of nations and casuistry, it would 
bear an argument whether the United States could rightfully go to 
war against the Chinese for administering their own laws on persons 
voluntarily coming within their jurisdiction." 

And in the treaty concluded with Siam in 1833, and ratified 
by the Senate two years later it was agreed: "Merchants 
of the United States trading in the Kingdom of Siam shall 
respect and follow the laws and customs of the country in 
all points." It is hardly to JDe doubted that the decision of 
the Americans in submitting to Chinese jurisdiction in the 
Terranova case, represented fairly accurately the state of 
American public opinion on the rights of Americans in 
China. 

A few weeks later the English reversed the Terranova 
precedent in the case of some sailors who were accused of 
killing some Chinese in a melee. The British authorities 
declined to surrender the sailors, but previous to 1821, they 
had yielded to Chinese jurisdiction in many similar in- 
stances.^^ 

The next two decades of the history of American rela- 
tions with China mark a gradual displacement of this policy 
of submission by one more in harmony with the rising power 
of the young nation. Indeed, as one observes the rising tide 
of national consciousness in the American traders after 
1822, one is reminded of the conversation recorded by Major 
Shaw, the first American consul at Canton, in his journal 
during his first visit. ^^ After Shaw had concluded a certain 
bargain with a Chinese, the haggling having extended over 
several days, the merchant asked: 

''You are not Englishman?" 



THE FOUNDATION OF AMERICAN POLICY IN ASIA 89 

"No." 

"But you speak English word, and when you first come, 
I can no tell difference; but now I understand very well 
When I speak Englishman his price, he say 'So much, — take 
it, — let alone.' I tell him, 'No, my friend, I give you so 
much.' He look at me — 'Go to hell, you damned rascal; 
what! you come here — set price my goods?' Truly, Massa 
Typan, I see very well you no hap Englishman. All China- 
man very much love your country." 

"Thus far," writes Shaw, "it may be supposed the fel- 
low's remarks pleased me. Justice obliges me to add his 
conclusion: 'All men come first time China very good 
gentlemen, all same you. I think two three times more you 
come Canton, you make all same Englishman too.' " 

This prophecy was never entirely fulfilled, for the Ameri- 
cans found that their policy, while not always flattering to 
national vanity and often differing widely from the spirit of 
those other American pioneers who fought their way across 
the American continent, was very profitable in China, and a 
useful means of obtaining special favors. 

During the entire period before the treaty of 1844, the 
Americans in Canton were left entirely without instructions 
from the Government of the United States. No official 
comment was ever made on the Terranova case. In 1822 
President Monroe gave a letter addressed to the Emperor 
of China to an American merchant, and John Quincy Adams, 
as Secretary of State, addressed a letter to the Viceroy of 
Canton.-" Neither letter, so far as is known, was ever 
accepted. 

BIBLIOGEAPHICAL NOTES 

1. Floyd EepoTt on Oregon, Eeports of Committees 45 :16-2 ; Annals 

of Congress, 17-2, pp. 398 ; 418, 423, 588-6. 

2. "Personal Eeminiscences, with Eecollections of China," by 

Eobert Bennett Forbes (3d ed., Boston, 1892). The addenda 
gives many details of the organization and history of Eusscll 
and Company. 

3. "Sketch of the Life of D. W. C. Olyphant," by Eev. Thatcher 

Thayer (New York, 1852); Hunter's "Fan Kwae"; Barrett's 
"Old Merchants of New York." 



90 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

4. Sessional Papers (1821) Vol. 7. 

5. "Foreign Commerce of the United States," by J. Smith Hoinans 

(New York, 1857), table, p. 181. 

6. Hunt's Merchants Magazine, Vol. 11 (July -Dec., 1844), table, 

p. 55. 

7. Trade statistics for the period before 1840; Pitkin; Seybert's 

Statistical Annals of the U. S. ; an exhaustive analysis in Ses- 
sional Papers, 1821, Vol. 7, and in Parliamentary Papers, 1830, 
Vols. 5 and 6, in which the American trade is somewhat exag- 
gerated for the purpose of making a case against the East 
India Company monopoly; Report of the Secretary of the 
Treasury, July 1, 1840, H. Doc. 248, 26-1 ; see also H. Doc. 35, 
27-3; and, Hunt's Merchants Magazine. 

8. Madison Papers (Lib. of Congress), Vol. XXXV, May 27, 1809, 

A. B. Woodward to Madison. 

9. Jefferson Papers (Lib. of Congress), Jefferson to Gallatin, July 

25, and Aug. 15, 1808. 

10. Barrett's "Old Merchants of New York," Vol. 3, pp. 6-10. 

11. Paullin's "American Naval Vessels in the Orient." 

12. Shaw's Journal; and, "Voyages," by Richard J. Cleveland, New 

York, 1855, p. 72 ; China Review, Vol. 5, p. 152. 

13. Niles' Register, April 23, 1825. 

14. Canton Consular Letters (approximate date, 1815). 

15. H. Doc. 71, 26-2, Nov. 1, 1821, Wilcocks to Adams. 

16. Miscellaneous Notices, by Sir Geo. T. Staunton, London, 1822, 

1850, pp. 409-10. 

17. North American Review, Oct., 1834, pp. 58-68. 

18. See "International Relations with the Chinese Empire," by H. 

B. Morse, London, 1910, Vol. 1, pp. 99-107, for a complete list 
of the cases of homicide in which the foreigners were accused 
by the Chinese. 

19. Shaw's Journal, p. 199. 

20. J. Q. Adams Memoirs, Philadelphia, 1875, Vol. 6, p. 491. 



CHAPTER V 

THE AMERICANS AND THE ANGLO-CHINESE WAR 

In the conclusion of the first American treaty with China 
two series of actions converge: on the one hand the policy 
of the Americans in China towards both Chinese and Brit- 
ish ; and, on the other, the slowly awakening interest of the 
Government of the United States in Chinese affairs. Until 
very shortly before the decision to negotiate a treaty the 
one had very little relation to the other. 

Before 1840 the American Government assumed towards 
its citizens resident in China an attitude not very dissimilar 
to that taken by the Chinese towards their own emigres: 
Let them shift for themselves. The merchants in Canton, 
thus left to themselves, and not at all protesting at the 
policy of the government, adopted a course in which they 
had perfected themselves — that of conciliation — and in the 
main they prospered. From the execution of Terranova to 
the beginning of 1839 the annals of Chinese- American rela- 
tions were quite uneventful. ' 

Just as in all frontier communities, so at Canton, men 
possessed influence or hot according to their abilities. Wil- 
cocks, Ammidon, Russell and Gushing were acknowledged 
leaders. In the third decade of the century Gushing was 
credited with having been the most influential of all 
foreigners among the Chinese. 

Taking advantage of a rice famine in Canton in 1825, 
and utilizing his intimate friendship with the hong mer- 
chant Houqua, Gushing secured a reduction in the tonnage 
dues on ships laden with rice coming to Canton. Whereas 
other ships had to pay the full tonnage tax, ranging from 
$3000 to $6000, whether full or empty, "rice-ships" were to 
pay only about $1150. After 1833 these were admitted 

91 



92 AMERICANS IN EAStERN ASIA 

entirely free. This arrangement was, to the Americans 
especially, a substantial benefit because they had an even 
greater difficulty than the English in finding cargoes for 
import which could be absorbed in the Chinese market, and 
also because the regular tonnage dues fell heaviest on the 
smallest ships, and the Americans at that time were still 
employing relatively small vessels.^ 

The dissolution of the East India Company monopoly 
caused a ripple in the tide of American affairs, but hardly 
more. The removal of the overshadowing 'Company' made 
way for the rise and the increased prestige of independent 
firms, an advantage which some of the American firms were 
in a position to seize. In the fresh competition which fol- 
lowed the advent of many new firms and individuals, the 
Americans fared well, having gone through their period of 
financial difficulties ten years earlier. The Lord Napier 
incident caused a brief stopping of the trade, which the 
Americans accepted with their accustomed complaisance.* 

The national antipathies which had separated the 
Americans and the English during so much of the earlier 
period were mitigated as American houses dealt in English 
manufactured goods, and as banking relations became more 
intimate. From the dissolution of the Company until 1839 
the relations between the English and Americans were un- 
usually cordial. Their interests were much the same. 

The dissolution of the East India Company monopoly 
(1834) due in part to the extraordinary success of the inde- 
pendent American merchants was ominous for the continu- 
ance of peaceful relations between England and China. The 
dissolution of the monopoly, the release of individual mer- 

*Lord Napier arrived in China in July, 1834, with a royal commission as 
chief superintendent of British trade. It was expected that he would take the 
place of the former chairman of the Select Committee of the East India Com- 
pany, as the representative officer of the British Government, and that he would 
also exercise some enlarged .iudicial and executive powers which had not belonged 
to the agents of the East India Company. The manner of his coming to China 
was sadly bungled and the Chinese refused to receive him, at length stopping 
the trade to force his retirement to Macao. Lord Napier died at Macao, October 
11, 1834.= 

Sir George T. Staunton,^ formerly chairman of the Select Committee of the 
East India Company, stated : "Lord Napier, owing to the unfortunate omission 
of our government to apply for and obtain from the Chinese authorities in due 
time his formal recognition, . . . had no offlcial station or public privilege in 
China whatsoever." 



THE AMERICANS AND THE ANGLO-CHINESE WAR 93 

chants from the thrall of the Company restrictions, and 
the greatly increased competition for the trade, also in- 
creased the points of irritation between the English and the 
Chinese. Most ominous was the fact that under the new 
arrangements, affronts offered to the merchants were no 
longer to be considered merely as difficulties of a trading 
company. They became national insults. The blunder of 
the English foreign office in the manner of sending out Lord 
Napier created a bad situation. The subsequent policy of 
Captain Charles Elliot, English superintendent of trade, 
wavering as he did between a desire to keep the trade going 
and to vindicate national honor, encouraged the Chinese in 
the opinion that the mastery of the situation lay with China 
just as it had in the past when she was able so completely 
to control the merchants by stopping the trade. 

Another factor which operated against the continuance 
of peaceful relations was China's fear of England. The 
Chinese Government had not been unmindful of British 
aggression in India, Burmah, the Malay Peninsula, and the 
archipelago. The Manchu dynasty was conscious of the fact 
that it was really alien to China, and that it was unpopular 
with large numbers of people, as was proved by the increas- 
ing number of insurrections. The Peking Government 
feared that the English might effect a coalition with rebel- 
lious spirits within the Empire to displace the Manchus. 
Above these general causes of distrust and irritation lay 
the immediate facts that each year the exportations of specie 
to pay for the opium were increasing, and the Chinese 
economists could see in this only the gradual impoverish- 
ment of the Empire, while the demoralizing effect of opium 
smoking was everywhere apparent. The opium trade re- 
ceived a new impetus in 1836 when, for a few months, it was 
reported and confidently believed that the trade was to be 
legalized. After a brief debate the Imperial Government 
decided against legalization, and instead demanded the ex- 
pulsion from Canton of nine foreigners, at least one of whom 
was American; but the foreigners remained. The traders 
became bolder from month to month, not only increasing 



94 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

the sales along the coast but bringing the drug again to 
Whampoa, and even to Canton. The government accord- 
ingly stiffened its opposition and a conflict became inevit- 
able.^ In 1838 the Imperial Government determined to 
destroy the opium trade, seizing the opportunity to effect 
at one stroke a moral reform, establish an important 
economic regulation, and, by no means incidentally, to 
curb the growing power of the foreigners in South China. 
While it had always been the fond hope of the Ameri- 
cans, from the beginnings of their relations with the Chinese 
Government, so to conduct themselves as to win a preferred 
place in Chinese estimation, as far as the government 
was concerned, the policy had not been successful. Before 
the officials all foreigners were alike, and the Americans, 
because of their close similarity to the English, were often 
confused or identified with the latter to a point which 
effectually thwarted the American effort to maintain good 
will. The fact that the Chinese officials assumed the Ameri- 
can share in the opium trade to be very much larger than it 
was, added to the difficulty and made it certain that when- 
ever the Chinese assumed the aggressive, the English-speak- 
ing people would share alike the displeasure of the Chinese. 

Foreigners Imprisoned in the Factories 

On December 12, 1838, the Chinese attempted to execute 
a Chinese opium dealer in the public square in front of the 
factories, almost directly under the American flag. Some 
American and British residents interfered and the execution 
took place outside the factory boundaries. After the execu- 
tion a "large and desperate mob was raised by the impru- 
dence and folly of a small number of English and American 
young men," to borrow the phrase of the American consul 
in his official report. The mob, which numbered 7000 or 
8000, was dispersed by the Chinese authorities and shortly 
afterward Captain Elliot appeared with about 120 men 
hastily collected from the ships at Whampoa.^ 

The Chinese persisted. Late in the afternoon, February 



THE AMERICANS AND THE ANGLO-CHINESE WAR 95 

26, 1839, when most of the foreigners were absent from the 
factories taking their recreation, twenty mandarins and a 
hundred soldiers brought another native opium dealer into 
the square and executed him without opposition. The 
reason given was "that all foreigners who are engaged in the 
traffic of this prohibited article may witness the dreadful 
punishment inflicted on the natives for their violation of 
the laws of the Empire." 

"The execution," writes the American consul, "is consid- 
ered by the foreigners a direct and positive insult." At the 
suggestion of Captain Elliot, and after consultation with the 
French and Dutch consuls who agreed on common action. 
Consul Snow, in protest, hauled down the American flag. 
"I have," he reported, "on deliberation, concluded not to set 
mine again until receipt of orders from you (Secretary of 
State) to that effect, or circumstance should make it proper 
to do so." ^ 

Three weeks later, March 18, Commissioner Lin who had 
arrived from Peking with the most explicit orders to destroy 
the opium trade, issued an ultimatum to the foreigners. 
Charging them with ingratitude, he pointed to the receiving 
ships at Lintin which had been repeatedly ordered tiway, 
asserted that he had the names of the foreign opium mer- 
chants, and demanded that every chest on the store-ships be 
surrendered. He gave three days in which to reply, and 
promised to stop at no half-way measures. He also de- 
manded that the foreigners give bonds that they would 
bring no more opium to China and would concede to the 
Chinese Government the right to punish violations "with 
the extreme penalty of the law." ^ Consul Shaw reported 
the request for the opium as a 'just demand.' Commissioner 
Lin believed that he held in his hand a still invincible 
weapon — the power to stop the trade. "Let our ports once 
be closed against you," he declared, "and for what profit can 
your several nations any longer look? Yet more : our tea and 
rhubarb, seeing that, should you foreigners be deprived of 
them, you therein lose the means of preserving life, are 
without stint granted to you for transportation, year by 



96 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

year, beyond the seas. Favors never have been greater." 
Consequently when the foreigners attempted parleys and 
promised compromises he stopped the trade (March 22). 
Five days later the compradores and coolies were withdrawn 
from the factories and the following day, all the streets, ex- 
cept one, leading to the square, were walled up. The for- 
eigners became prisoners ; soldiers surrounded them on land, 
and war junks cut off their access to the river. 

All the foreigners acting together notified Lin, March 
25, that the settlement of the opium question was to be left 
entirely with the various consuls and national representa- 
tives. Consul Snow therefore entered with fear and trem- 
bling upon duties never delegated to him by his government 
and never contemplated in his commission. So far as the 
American merchants were concerned, the consul was put 
forward for the time as suited their convenience, and as a 
matter of equal convenience, later discarded.^ 

Snow's not very simple problem was to disentangle 
American from British affairs to the satisfaction of the 
Chinese. Fortunately for him, as well as for the American 
merchants concerned. Captain Elliot, whose policy was to 
keep the foreigners united against the actions of Lin, was 
disposed to assume full responsibility for the Indian opium 
in the hands of the Americans, and it was surrendered to 
him. Two duties remained for Snow: to prove to Lin that 
the Americans were not concerned in the trade to an equal 
extent with the English ; and to settle the disputed question 
of the nature of the bond which should be given in the future 
as a pledge of total abstinence from opium trading by 
American merchants. He positively refused to sign the 
bond proposed by Lin, referring the question to Washing- 
ton, in this matter acting in concert with the Dutch, and 
with the approval of the merchants. Eventually the 
Americans accepted the bond in a very modified form. The 
task of making clear the American share in and attitude 
towards the opium trade in general was more difiicult, but 
two weeks after the imprisonment had begun in earnest, he 
was able to report to the State Department: "The Govern- 



THE AMERICANS AND THE ANGLO-CHINESE WAR 97 

ment is satisfied, I think, that no opium is grown in our 
country; that the Americans in the future will not, under 
any circumstances, engage in the trade/' ^ 

The next question facing the Americans was whether 
the concert of action hitherto maintained with the other 
nations, should be continued. The delivery of the opium 
was progressing rapidly, and the port was to be opened May 
5, to permit passage to Macao for those who desired it. 
Captain Elliot proposed that the foreigners, acting together, 
.should now turn the tables on the Chinese and withdraw 
from Canton to Macao, thus stopping the trade on their 
side, as Lin had stopped it for the Chinese. The English 
had tried such a policy before and it had been successful. 
It was argued that this was a suitable time to convince the 
Chinese that they were quite as dependent on the trade as 
were the foreigners. ^^ 

But the American merchants * were of a different mind. 
From the day when the English withdrew from Canton 
the foreign nations went their separate ways, and fortu- 
nately or unfortunately, according to the point of view, 
each nation was compelled, individually, to assume for its 
actions the responsibility which the Americans, at least, had 
been hitherto more or less disposed to ignore or shift. 

"The British residents," wrote Commander George C. 
Read (May 28) of the U. S. East India Squadron which 
had arrived at Macao a month earlier, "are evidently 
displeased with the course our countrymen have adopted." ^^ 

The displeasure of the English did not continue long for 
it was-soon discovered that the presence of the Americans 
at Canton was of very great assistance to the English in 
getting out the cargoes which had been piling up during the 
winter. 

An American merchant, then the manager of Russell and 
Company, many years afterward stated, in language which 
no doubt faithfully reflects the policy of the Americans: 
"When the English left Canton, Elliot himself personally 
begged Russell and Company to follow his countrymen, 

*For the American share in the opium trade see Chapter vi. 



98 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

saying, 'If your house goes, all will go, and we shall soon 
bring these rascally Chinese to terms.' I replied that I had 
not come to China for health or pleasure, and that I should 
remain at my post as long as I could sell a yard of goods or 
buy a pound of tea; that we Yankees had no queen to 
guarantee our losses, etc. Elliot replied that he would soon 
make Canton too hot for us." ^^ 

For the next few months the Americans did a land-office 
business. Freights between Hongkong and Canton were 
higher than from Hongkong to America, and the Americans 
carried the goods in and out for the English, sometimes 
going through the formality of evading the law by loading 
ships with English goods at Hongkong, taking them over to 
Manila, and bringing them back to Canton without break- 
ing bulk. Every sort of vessel that could float was pressed 
into service including not a few, it may be feared of the 
idle English fleet now transferred to American ownership in 
very informal ways, and in no way entitled, according to 
American maritime law, to fly the American flag.^^ 

The gentleman above quoted wrote that afterwards 
Captain Elliot said to him at Macao: "My dear Forbes, 
the Queen owes you many thanks for not taking my advice 
as to leaving Canton. We have got in all our goods, and got 
out a good supply of teas and silk. If the American houses 
had not remained at their posts, the English would have 
gone in. I had no power to prevent them from going. Now 
the trade of the season is over, and a large force at hand, we 
can bring the Chinese to terms." 

The momentous events of the three following years, so 
far as they concern Anglo-Chinese relations, can be narrated 
with brevity. The Chinese took the offensive, ordering the 
English from Macao whither they had retreated from Can- 
ton. The latter in turn, moved to Hongkong, living for a 
time on shipboard, but gradually forming a settlement on 
the island. A blockade of the river was established by the 
English the next year (June 28, 1840), after the season's 
trade had been cared for, and the trade was reopened the 
the following year for a few weeks to take care of the 



THE AMERICANS AND THE ANGLO-CHINESE WAR 99 

accumulated produce. So far as Canton was concerned, the 
war ended May 27, 1841. Fifteen months later, August 29, 
1842, the Treaty of Nanking was signed. The following 
year, October 8, 1843, a supplementary treaty which in- 
cluded important additional items, as well as a tariff, was 
signed at the Bogue. 

The Americans Petition Congress 

In order to bring the narration of other events important 
to the Americans in China up to 1844, when the American 
treaty was negotiated, it is necessary to review the request 
of the American merchants to Congress for the appoint- 
ment of a commercial agent ; the condition of public senti- 
ment in the United States; and the action of Commodore 
Kearny in securing the assent of the Chinese to "most- 
favored-nation" treatment for the Americans. 

After the English had left Canton the Americans ad- 
dressed a memorial to Congress (May 25, 1839) explaining 
the American share in the opium trade, asking for the 
appointment of a commercial agent to be sent to China to 
negotiate a commercial treaty, and asking also for the dis- 
patch to Chinese waters of a suitable naval force for the 
protection of American lives and property.^* 

The memorial, after summarizing the cause of the ag- 
gressive measures adopted by Commissioner Lin, proposed: 

"We would, therefore, with all deference and respect express our 
opinions that the United States Government should take immediate 
measures; and, if deemed advisable, to act in concert with the gov- 
ernments of Great Britain, France and Holland, or either of them, 
in their endeavors to establish commercial relations with this empire 
upon a safe and honorable footing, such as exists between all friendly 
powers; and by direct appeal to the Imperial Government at Peking, 
to obtain a compliance with the following among other important 
demands :" 

These demands included: (1) Permission for foreign 
envoys to reside near the court at Peking with the usual 
diplomatic privileges. (2) Promulgation of a fixed tariff. 
(3) A system of bonding warehouses, or some regulations 



100 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

for the transshipment of goods for reexport. (4) Liberty of 
trading at other port or ports in China. (5) Compensation 
for losses caused by stoppage of legal trade and guarantees 
for the future. And the further provision (6) ''That until 
the Chinese laws are distinctly made known and recognized, 
the punishment for wrongs committed by foreigners upon 
the Chinese, or others, shall not be greater than is appli- 
cable to the like offenses by the laws of the United States, 
or England; nor shall any punishment be inflicted by 
the Chinese authorities upon any foreigner, until the 
guilt of the party shall have been fairly and clearly 
proved." 

When this memorial was prepared the opium had been 
surrendered to Captain Elliot who had thus become respon- 
sible for the payment for it, and the drug had been de- 
stroyed. The English had withdrawn from Cantoi* and it 
was evident that they would soon begin hostilities. It was 
also assumed, for it had been a matter of discussion for 
years, that when the peace had once been broken it would 
not be restored until other ports in China had been opened 
to trade, and some assurances had been given as a basis for 
stable diplomatic relations. On other matters as well the 
time was fast approaching for a general settlement. The~ 
memorial pointed out that the recent action of the authori- 
ties had been indiscriminate and unjust in that it had made 
no effort to differentiate between the innocent and the 
guilty, and had shown scant regard for facts and evidence. 
The present action of the Chinese Government must be 
resented or in a short time all foreign trade would be driven 
out. In conclusion the Americans express the 'candid con- 
viction' that the appearance of a naval force from the 
United States, England and France upon the coast of China 
would, without bloodshed, obtain from the government 
proper acknowledgments and treaties. The significant fea- 
tures of the memorial were: absence of bitterness towards 
the Chinese; proposals for joint action with England; and 
the confident expectation that peaceful measures would 
suffice. 



THE AMERICANS AND THE ANGLO-CHINESE WAR 101 

The Americans had taken their imprisonment with good 
humor. There had been some alarm at the outset of the 
confinement but the intentions of Lin soon appeared ag- 
gressive only in the sense that he was determined to enforce 
a policy of non-intercourse. He intended no bodily harm to 
the Americans. Prisoners they certainly were but the sup- 
plies, while nominally cut off, were actually smuggled in 
each night, and one of those confined afterwards reported 
that the prisoners suffered more during their confinement 
from over-eating and lack of exercise than from want of 
any necessity of life.^^ The arrival, late in April, of Com- 
mander Read with the Columbia and John Adams at Macao, 
Had been an assurance to the entire community, and yet the 
Americans had felt so much better able to handle the situa- 
tion at Canton, unassisted, that the consul had asked Read 
to delay coming to Canton until after the affair was 
settled.^^ 

"It would be a fete gratifying, I doubt not," wrote the Chaplain 
of the Squadron, "to all the officers of our ship from the highest to 
the lowest to force the Bogue, and to demand without delay the 
Americans now held within their premises at Canton. But the ap- 
prehension is that, as their numbers are comparatively so small and 
a mob of a numerous populace is ever so ready to do the bidding of 
the reckless and the abandoned, our approach might be attended with 
danger from the rabble at Canton. The authorities themselves have 
said, all that they have to do for the destruction of those now within 
their power is to allow the mob to do their wishes. And there may be 
truth in all this, as there is a general impression among the lower 
classes of the Chinese at Canton that the foreign factories are filled 
with the precious metals, and that the plunder were well worth the 
sacrifice of the heads of a few 'foreign devils' that have the custody 
of it." 

Probably the sudden appearance of the American naval 
.vessels had a more important influence in dissuading Com- 
missioner Lin from occupying Macao in such a way as to 
prevent the English from carrying out their plans to with- 
draw to that city as soon as the opium was delivered. ^'^ 

It was not so much the action of the Chinese as that of 
the British which moved the Americans to ask for a com- 
missioner to negotiate a treaty. Left to themselves, the 



102 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

Americans would have been content with the old arrange- 
ments or at least they would not have moved to change 
them. They were even entirely willing — provided the mer- 
chants of other nations would agree to a similar course — to 
forego the opium trade, as the price of their future safety 
and comfort. Indeed they would have welcomed the end 
of the opium traffic, for its suppression would mean better 
markets for American produce. But now that the house of 
cards was tumbling, and the benevolent despotism under 
which they had been living was in the way of being altered, 
they not unnaturally wished the United States to be repre- 
sented in the coming settlement. 

Congress Becomes Interested 

When Congress took up the discussion of the Anglo- 
Chinese War in 1840, American public opinion was better 
prepared than at any time previously to express itself. The 
commercial interest in China, while still confined to the 
Atlantic seaboard, had broadened. Whereas twenty-five 
years before the steady drain of specie caused by the trade 
had created popular prejudice against it, now the growth of 
manufacturing in the North which looked to the South for 
supplies of raw cotton, tended to arouse a general interest in 
the markets of China. The reports of the American mis- 
sionaries who had already been at work in China for a 
decade had stimulated in the United States an ever grow- 
ing philanthropic interest in the Empire and their reports 
on the evils of the opium trade were a powerful factor in 
shaping public opinion. The American people were also 
alert to find in the conflict merely another phase of world- 
wide British aggression with which they had been made 
familiar in the War of 1812, the memory of which was still 
green. The tumultuous events of 1839 at Canton were fol- 
lowed in the United States with lively interest. 

Early in January, 1840, the memorial of the American 
merchants at Canton asking for naval protection and the 
appointment of a commissioner to negotiate a treaty was 



THE AMERICANS AND THE ANGLO-CHINESE WAR 103 

presented to the House by Abbott Lawrence of Massa- 
chusetts,^^ 

A resolution * passed in the House February 7, 1840, 
asking the President for information ''respecting the condi- 
tion of the citizens of the United States doing business 
■during the past year in China; the state of the American 
trade with that country; and the interests of the people 
and commerce of the United States, as affected by the recent 
measures of the Chinese Government for the suppression of 
the contraband or forcible introduction of opium into China. 
Also whether the British Government had given notice to 
that of the United States of a purpose to blockade the ports 
of China, or of other hostile intentions towards that 
Government." ^^ 

In April a large group of Boston and Salem merchants 
and ship owners interested in the China trade, apparently 
fearing that Congress might be spurred to precipitate action, 
also memorialized Congress, urging caution. They submit- 
ted some additional information and expressed the fear that 
while the attention of the Chinese Government was engaged 
in the war the usual efforts to suppress the pirates along the 
coast would be neglected, and that American shipping, 
which was usually slightly armed and carried on with small 
crews, would be endangered. They therefore approved the 
request of their correspondents in China for an American 
naval force in Chinese waters. But beyond taking this 
action, they hoped that the government would proceed with 
great deliberation. They would even deprecate giving to 
any naval commander any powers to interfere in the conflict 
between England and China, or to enter into any diplomatic 
relations with the Chinese. "The result of more than one 
attempt," they stated, "of our British neighbors to improve 
their position with the Chinese has been upon each occa- 
sion the imposition of further restraint upon all foreigners 
and such, we believe, would follow any negotiations on the 
part of the Americans based upon the established usages 
among other nations." -" This memorial, signed as it was 

*Keport submitted February 25, 1840. 



104 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

by many who had already spent years in China, expressed 
the wisdom of age as compared with the wisdom of youth, 
and the advice was accepted. The East India Squadron, 
under Commodore Kearny, was dispatched to China, but no 
further step was taken. 

It is interesting to observe in this memorial the inference 
that the British aggression in China, so far from being re- 
garded as an opportunity by the Americans, was really 
looked upon as an embarrassment. 

Public sentiment in the United States at the time was 
clearly reflected in the following episode in the House 
(March 16, 1840) when Caleb Cushing rose to interrogate 
the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and to 
correct some 'misapprehensions' which appeared to 
exist abroad as to the intentions of the United States in 
China.-i 

After recalling the fact that he had proposed the resolu- 
tion calling upon the President for information with refer- 
ence to China, and that the memorial of the Canton mer- 
chants had been referred to the Committee on Foreign 
Relations, he said: 

"I am somewhat disturbed to learn, through the intelligence 
brought by the Great Western, that these movements here are con- 
strued in England as indicating a disposition on the part of the 
American Government 'to join heart and hand with the British Gov- 
ernment, and endeavor to obtain commercial treaties from the au- 
thorities in China.' Now as for myself, I wish to say that this is a 
great misconception, if it be not a wilful perversion, of what is con- 
templated here. I have, it is true, thought that the present contin- 
gency, — when the Americans in Canton, and they almost or quite 
alone, have manifested a proper respect for the laws and public 
rights of the Chinese Empire, in honorable contrast with the out- 
rageous misconduct of the English there, — and when the Chinese 
Government, grateful for the upright deportment of the Americans, 
has manifested the best possible feeling toward them, — I have thought 
that these circumstances afforded a favorable opportunity to en- 
deavor to put the American trade with China on a just and stable 
footing for the future. 

"But God forbid that I should entertain the idea of cooperating 
with the British Government in the purpose, if purpose it has, of 
upholding the base cupidity and violence and high-handed infraction 
of all law, human and divine, which have characterized the operation 
of the British, individually and collectively, in the seas of China. 



THE AMERICANS AND THE ANGLO-CHINESE WAR 105 

... I trust that the idea will no longer be entertained in England 
that she will receive aid or countenance from the United States in 
that nefarious enterprise." 

Thus began the myth in the United States, at a time 
when the Americans at Canton were riding rough-shod over 
Commissioner Lin's embargo on English trade, and smug- 
ghng the English cargoes for the season, both in and out 
of the port, that the American in China was an angel of 
light. This complacency is entirely comparable with the 
contemporaneous misrepresentations in England of Chinese 
ethics and foreign policy. 

Within a year three reports were laid before Congress; 
a report of the Secretary of State, February 25, 1840, a re- 
port of the Secretary of the Treasury on the China trade, 
July 1, 1840,-^ and a supplementary report of the Secretary 
of State, January 25, 1841,-^ the last in response to a request 
of John Quincy Adams, chairman of the House Committee 
on Foreign Relations, for '^copies of all documents in the 
Department of State or other departments, showing the 
origin of any political relations between the United States 
and the Empire of China; the first appointment of a consul 
to reside at or near Canton; whether such consul, or any 
subsequently appointed, has ever been received or recog- 
nized in that capacity ; and the present relations between 
the Government of the United States and that of the Celes- 
tial Empire." 

These three reports and the two memorials above dis- 
cussed comprise a documentary history of American rela- 
tions with China, giving in great detail the Terranova 
incident of 1821, and the events of 1839. 

Public sentiment ran strongly to disapproval of the Brit- 
ish action. It is notable that this opinion was by no means 
confined to religious and philanthropic circles, but that it 
extended to commercial interests. ''China has a perfect 
right to regulate the character of her imports," -^ asserted 
a writer in Hunt's Merchants Magazine. The leading 
article in the same magazine for January, 1841, had pointed 
out that while the importations of opium from India into 



106 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

China had created a favorable condition for English com- 
merce, it had not been beneficial to Americans. There was 
a general feeling that the extinction of the opium trade 
would help the commercial interests of the United States, as 
well as the moral and physical welfare of China. American 
and Chinese interests were in this, as well as in other points, 
identical. 

The attitude of John Quincy Adams on the China ques- 
tion is especially worth noting for several reasons. He had 
been Secretary of State at the time of the execution of 
Terranova, and while he had refrained from expressing an 
opinion on the action of the Americans, he had been made 
familiar with an aspect of Chinese- American relations little 
understood or appreciated by those who were discussing the 
question in 1840-43. He was also the chairman of the Com- 
mittee of Foreign Affairs, and at the same time he was inti- 
mately acquainted with the Boston and Salem merchants. 
A clue to the way Adams' mind was working is to be noted 
in his remarks on presenting for a third time (December 16, 
1840) his resolution asking for the supplementary report on 
the state of American political relations with the Celestial 
Empire. He recounted an incident ^^ which, although not 
then made public, should be noted here. Snow had reported, 
after the English had withdrawn from Canton, and while 
the Americans were enjoying such unbounded prosperity 
through their almost complete monopoly of the trade, and 
were in more or less conflict with the Chinese authorities 
over the signing of the bond, and the importation of British 
goods : 

"Correspondence with this government is exceedingly troublesome, 
for the replies to the Commissioner's edicts are seen by the Kwang- 
Chow-foo (Prefect) for the purpose of correcting any error that may 
be made in the translation, as any unguarded expression would bring 
him into certain trouble. The reply, of which I now send you a copy, 
was returned by this officer, requesting that I add an expression of 
gratitude for all favors bestowed upon me by the great Emperor, and 
likewise a hope for the continuation of the Celestial dynasty's trade 
with my nation, placing the Celestial dynasty about an inch higher 
on the paper than my nation, thereby admitting their superiority. I 
declined doing either, and sent it as originally written. These trifles 



THE AMERICANS AND THE ANGLO-CHINESE WAR 107 

serve to show their determination never to permit a foreign nation to 
presume to an equality with their own." 

This, thought Adams, was the 'true ground' of the war 
then raging between Great Britain and China — 'this boasted 
superiority above every nation on earth.' Without going 
into a discussion of the objects and causes of the English 
war with China, it must be recognized that whatever may 
have been the immediate issues, Adams was right as to the 
fundamental instability of any relationship where English- 
men — or Americans — were called upon to submit their lives 
and property unreservedly to a despotism, however benevo- 
lent that despotism might ordinarily be in practice. 

Adams made a careful study of both the American Gov- 
ernment reports and the Enghsh blue books on the situation 
in China,-*^ and in December, 1841, in a lecture before the 
Massachusetts Historical Society, he said: 

"The fundamental principle of the Chinese Empire is anti-com- 
mercial. ... It admits no obligation to hold commercial intercourse 
with others. It utterly denies the equality of other nations with itself, 
and even their independence. It holds itself to be the center of the 
terraqueous globe, equal to the heavenly host, and all other nations 
with whom it has any relations, political or commercial, as outside 
tributary barbarians reverently submissive to the will of its despotic 
chief. It is upon this principle, openly avowed and inflexibly main- 
tained, that the principal maritime nations of Europe for several 
centuries, and the United States of America from the time of their 
acknowledged independence, have been content to hold commercial in- 
tercourse with the Empire of China, 

'Tt is time that this enormous outrage upon the rights of human 
nature, and upon the first principle of the rights of nations should 
cease. ... 

"This is the truth, and, I apprehend, the only question at issue 
between the governments and nations of Great Britain and China. 
It is a general, but I believe altogether mistaken opinion that the 
quarrel is merely for certain chests of opium imported by British 
merchants into China, and seized by the Chinese Government for 
having been imported contrary to law. This is a mere incident to the 
dispute; but no more the cause of war, than the throwing overboard 
of the tea in the Boston harbor was the cause of the North American 
Revolution. 

"The cause of war is the koiowf — the arrogant and insupportable 
pretensions of China, that she will hold commercial intercourse with 
the rest of mankind, not upon terms of equal reciprocity, but upon 
the insulting and degrading forms of relation between lord and vas- 
sal." '' 



108 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

• "The excitement of public opinion and feeling by the 
delivery of this lecture," Adams recorded in his journal, 
"far exceeds any expectation that I had formed." Dr. John 
Palfry, editor of the North Ainerican Review, declined to 
print it as an article in the magazine. 

Rev. Peter Parker, M. D., the first American medical 
missionary to China, visited the United States at this time 
and was very actively engaged in arousing and educating 
public opinion on the China question. He laid the matter 
before President Tyler and was frequently in touch with 
John Quincy Adams. In March, 1841, he urged that the 
United States extend its good offices to mediate between 
England and the Celestial Empire. Subsequently Parker 
asked Adams if he would consider the position of commis- 
sioner to China, to which the latter replied that he might, 
if the offer came from authorized quarters, but he thought 
that a formal mission at that time (June 2, 1842) was inex- 
pedient."^ ,V 

Commodore Keaeny's Most- Favored-Nation Agreement 

Six weeks after the signing of the Treaty of Nanking, 
between England and China, Commodore Kearny, being 
under the impression that the treaty had not yet been con- 
cluded, addressed the following letter to the Governor of 
Canton: ^9 

"The undersigned is desirous that the attention of the Imperial 
Government might be called with respect to the commercial interests 
of the United States, and he hopes that the importance of their trade 
will receive consideration, and their citizens, in that matter, be placed 
upon the same footing as the merchants- of the nation most favored." 

A week later Kiying replied : 

Decidedly it shall not be permitted that American merchants shall 
come to have merely a dry stick (that is, their interests shall be at- 
tended to). I, the Governor, will not be otherwise disposed than to 
look up to the heart of the great Emperor in his compassionate regard 
towards those men from afar, that Chinese and foreigners with faith 
and justice may be mutually united, and forever enjoy reciprocal 
tranquillity, and that it be granted to each of the resident merchants 



THE AMERICANS AND THE ANGLO-CHINESE WAR 109 

to obtain profit, and to the people to enjoy life and peace, and uni- 
versally to participate in the blessings of great prosperity, striving to 
have the same mind." 

Commodore Kearny returned to Macao in January, 
1843, after a cruise to Manila, and heard rumors that only 
English vessels would be allowed to trade in the newly 
opened ports. In a private conversation Admiral Sir 
Thomas Cochrane told him that "the other nations must 
look out for themselves." Kearny therefore took opportun- 
ity, while communicating with the Governor about the 
settlement of some claims, to urge the necessity for most- 
favored-nation treatment to Americans in China. The 
Governor, under the misapprehension that Kearny had 
authority to settle the matter for the United States, replied 
that it was only necessary for him to await the arrival 
of the commissioners from the Emperor to make an agree- 
ment with reference to the trade ''and when some plan is 
adopted, then a personal interview may be held with your 
honor, the commodore, and face to face, the relation of the 
two countries may be arranged, and the same reported to 
the Emperor." 

The American officer thought he detected in the reply of 
the Governor an assumption of superiority for China as 
compared with the United States and therefore replied, dis- 
claiming that the United States would come to China in the 
attitude of begging a favor. 

"The commodore also avails of this communication again to say," 
he went on, "that what His Imperial Majesty grants to the traders 
from other countries, his own sovereign will demand for his mer- 
chants." 

Kearny therefore urged the appointment of commis- 
sioners to negotiate a treaty. To this the Governor replied, 
withdrawing a little from his former cordiality, and assuring 
the commodore that anything so formal as a treaty was 
quite unnecessary. 

On September 20, 1843, the consular agent at Canton 
notified the Secretary of State ^" that the trade had been 



110 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

thrown open to all foreigners on an equal footing. He 
stated: ''Our countrymen have now all the privileges 
granted to the British, and the feeling of the Government 
and people of China continues favorably disposed towards 
Americans." 

Credit for persuading the Chinese to open the ports to 
all nations on equal terms was claimed by the English Pleni- 
potentiary, Sir Henry Pottinger,^^ but a subsequent discov- 
ery at Canton placed the matter in a different light. The 
Chinese text of Article VIII of the English treaty of 1843, 
when translated back into English, was found to be some- 
what different from the original English text. It contains 
the following explanation : 

"Formerly the mereliants of every foreign nation were permitted 
to trade at the single port of Canton only, but last year it was 
agreed at Nanking, that if the Emperor should ratify the treaty, the 
merchants of the various nations of Europe should be allowed to pro- 
ceed to the four ports of Foochow, ISTingpo, Amoy and Shanghai for 
the purposes of trade, to which the English were not to make any 
objections. . . ." ^ 

From this it seems clear that neither to Sir Henry Pot- 
tinger nor to Commodore Kearny, but to the Chinese them- 
selves belongs the credit of having opened their ports freely 
to other nations. 

In the light of subsequent history this fact becomes 
especially interesting for the most-favored-nation clause, as 
applied to China became what is really the foundation of 
the more widely famed "open-door" policy. This policy, 
while obviously to the advantage of the Americans, was, 
equally clearly, the deliberate choice of the Chinese them- 
selves. The Chinese have adopted a similar policy repeat- 
edly in more recent times. 

This promise of most-favored-nation treatment, the in- 
troduction of which into Chinese international affairs in 
the form of an iron-bound treaty agreement, is due pri- 
marily to Commodore Kearny, became in practice something 
far more than a block by which the door to commercial 
privileges could be held open. The clause had not been in- 



THE AMERICANS AND THE ANGLO-CHINESE WAR 111 

serted in the Treaty of Nanking but it did appear in the 
British Supplementary Treaty of 1843, negotiated a few 
months after Kearny left China, and it has been included in 
every subsequent treaty engagement with a foreign Power. 
The open door of equal commercial opportunity, which it 
guaranteed, was one thing, and entirely desirable for China, 
but quite different was the fact that it became a device by 
which every nation thereafter could secure for itself any 
privilege which had been extorted by some other Power 
from China by force, or tricked from her by fraud, without 
having to assume the moral responsibility for the method 
by which the concession had been obtained. 

Usually in after years when China took a hand in the 
international game she must play alone, against the entire 
and united company of Powers, a trick taken by her most 
unscrupulous opponent counted equally for the benefit of 
all. 

The Mission Created 

After the news of the signing of the Treaty of Nanking 
had been received, President' Tyler (December 30, 1842) 
addressed to Congress a special message written by Daniel 
Webster, Secretary of State, dealing at length with the sit- 
uation in the Sandwich Islands and in China. The message 
summarized the reports of the opening of new Chinese ports 
to British commerce but expressed ignorance as to whether 
these ports would also be open to the trade of other nations. 
It noted that the American trade while subject to great 
fluctuations, had reached as much as $9,000,000 annually, 
and would doubtless be greatly increased by means of 
access to the new ports. 

"Being of the opinion," said the message, "that the commercial 
interests of the United States connected with China require at the 
present time a degree of vigilance such as there is no agent of this 
government on the spot to bestow, I recommend to Congress to make 
appropriation for the compensation of a commissioner to reside in 
China, to exercise a watchful care over the concerns of American citi- 
zens, and for the protection of their persons and property, empowered 
to hold intercourse with the legal authorities and ready, under in- 



112 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

structions from liis government, should such instructions become 
necessary and proper hereafter, to address himself to the high func- 
tionaries of the Empire, or through them to the Emperor himself." ^ 

The President's message proposed a resident commis- 
sioner, continuously attending to the commercial and diplo- 
matic affairs. The report on the proposed action by the 
Committee on Foreign Relations, presented January 24, 
1843,^^ was much less specific proposing an appropriation of 
$40,000 to enable the President to accomplish that object, 
without deeming it necessary to designate the specific rank 
or character of the agents whom he may employ for that 
purpose, or more especially to limit the contingent expenses/ 
which may occur in the process of its accomplishment." 
This latter provision aroused the suspicions of many who 
did not have great confidence in President Tyler, and the 
report was passed (March 3, 1843), in an amended form 
providing that no person should be employed in the mission 
for more than $9,000, exclusive of outfit, and that no agent 
should be appointed without the advice and consent of the 
Senate. ^^ 

Even this arrangement was not satisfactory to every one. 
Senator Benton strenuously objected to the mission as 
being "wholly personal and invented for the indemnification 
to one person, for vacating his place for the benefit of 
another. I repeat it," cried Benton, "the mission is not 
created for the country but invented for one man ; and he is 
now waiting to take it, and to go up and bump his 
head nineteen times against the ground in order to pur- 
chase the privilege of standing up before his Celestial 
Majesty." 

Senator Benton's remark referred to the rumor that 
Edward Everett, then minister at the Court of St. James, 
was to be appointed to the mission, thus creating a place in 
London for Daniel Webster who was about to resign as 
Secretary of State. Whatever may have been the facts at 
the base of the rumor, and Webster denied in a personal 
letter to Everett that there was any basis for it, the selection 
of Edward Everett for the mission was evidence of the 



THE AMERICANS AND THE ANGLO-CHINESE WAR 113 

extreme importance which was now attached to the estab- 
lishment of suitable diplomatic relations with China. 

"It is not intended," wrote Webster to Everett, March 10, 1843," 
"to dazzle the Emperor by show, nor soothe him by presents ; still the 
mission should be respectable, and the commissioner should have the 
means proper and necessary to carry forward the undertaking. . . . 
Mr. Adams came to see me yesterday. He feels the greatest anxiety 
that you should undertake the China mission which he regards as a 
most important afiair." 

But Everett declined the nomination, and the post was 
given to Caleb Gushing of Newburyport, Massachusetts, a 
member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and a warm 
supporter of President Tyler. Senator Benton, a bitter 
partisan in the opposition to the President, described Cush- 
ing ^'^ as one who had been three times rejected in one day 
upon nomination for the position of Secretary of the 
Treasury, and said of him: 

"He had deserted his party to join Mr. Tyler. He worked for 
him in and out of the House, and even deserted himself to support 
him — as in the two tariff bills of the current session; for both of 
which he voted, and then voted against them when vetoed." 

A member of the House described him as the man who 
"had voted for every bill and then justified every veto." 
''Cushing at the time of his appointment was forty-four 
years old, and had served in the House as a Whig since 
1834. He was the son of a Newburyport ship owner, an 
amazingly brilliant lawyer, and probably as familiar with 
the questions with which he would have to deal in China as 
any man who could have been selected from public life. The 
secretary of the mission was Daniel Webster's son, Fletcher. 

BIBLIOGEAPHIOAL NOTES 

1. Forbes' "Personal Reminiscences," p. 338; Hunt's American 

Merchants, Yol. 1, p. 64; Hunter's "Fan Kwae," p. 100; Ses- 
sional Papers, 1830, Vol. 6, p. 377. 

2. Morse's "International Relations," Yol. 1, pp. 118-44, gives a full 

account of the Napier incident. 

3. Staunton's Miscellaneous Notices, p. 16. 

4. Chinese Repository, Yol. 5, July, 1836, pp. 138-144. 



114 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

5. H. Doc. 119 :26-l. Dispatch No. 17, March 5, 1839. 

6. Ihid. 

7. Op. cit, No. 18, Mar. 22. 

8. Op. cit. No. 19, Apr. 19. 

9. Ihid. 

10. Op. cit. No. 20, May 13. 

11. Captains' Letters (Navy Dept.) May 28, 1839, No. 101. 

12. Forbes' "Reminiscences," p. 149. 

13. Ihid., pp. 151, 155. 

14. H. Doc. 40:26-1. 

15. "China and the China Trade," by R. B. Forbes (Boston, 1844) 

p. 49. 

16. "The Flag Ship," by Fitch W. Taylor, New York, 1840. (2 vols.) 

Vol. 2, pp. 110-11. 

17. H. Doc. 119 -.26-1, No. 21, May 22, 1839. 

18. H. Jour. (26-1) p. 189; VIII Cong. Globe, p. 109; H. Doc. 

40:26-1. 

19. H. Jour. 26-1, p. 368; H. Doc. 119:26-1. 

20. H.Jour. 26-1, p. 781; H. Doc. 170:26-1. 

21. VIII Cong. Globe, 26-1, p. 275. 

22. H. Doc. 119 :26-l ; H. Doc. 248 :26-l ; H. Doc. 71 :26-2 ; H. Jour. 

26-2, p. 46. 

23. H. Doc. 71 :26-2. 

24. Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, March, 1843, p. 205. 

25. H. Doc. 119 :26-l. Dispatch 25, Sept. 25, 1839. 

26. John Quincy Adams Memoirs, Vol. 11, p. 30. 

27. Chinese Repository, Vol. 9, May, 1842, p. 281. 

28. "Life and Letters of the Rev. and Hon. Peter Parker, M. D.," 

by Stevens and Marwick (Boston and Chicago, 1896) pp. 1S2-5, 
220-1 ; Adams Memoirs, Vol. 10, pp. 444-5. 

29. S. Doc. 139 :29-l ; The Kearny correspondence at Canton was 

published with great fullness in this document. 

30. Canton Consular Letters, Vol. 3. 

31. Littell's Living Age, Vol. 4, p. 387, quoting an address made by 

Sir Henry Pottinger. 

32. Chinese Repository, Vol. 12, Mar., 1844, p. 145. (This article, 

as it appears in the treaties published by the Chinese Mari- 
time Customs, is translated still differently). See also S. Ex. 
Doc. 67 :28-2, Gushing to Calhoun, Aug. 26, 1844. 

33. H. Doc. 35 :27-3 gives this message in fuller form than Richard- 

son, including the most recent trade statistics. 

34. H. Report 93:27-3. 

35. V. Statutes at Large, 24-28 Cong. Vol. 15, p. 624; H. Rept. 

93 :27-3. XII Cong. Globe, pp. 323, 325, 391. 

36. Webster Papers (Lib. of Congress). 

37. Benton's "Thirty Years' View." Vol. 2, p. 514. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE AMEEICAN SHARE IN THE OPIUM TRADE 

As has already been intimated the Americans entered the 
opium trade at an early day. They carried the drug to 
China from both Turkey and India. "Among the produc- 
tions of Turkey, and Egypt," reads an old consular trade 
report from Smyrna, "there are many that would answer 
well for the internal consumption of the United States, or 
for their foreign expeditions." ^ Opium was mentioned as 
an article which might be shipped to India with profit, but 
the Americans quickly learned that the growing market for 
opium was farther East. The American trade in Turkey 
opium began as early as 1805, perhaps earlier, when three 
American brigs, two from Philadelphia and one from Balti- 
more, cleared from Smyrna with the drug. In that year the 
Americans took out one hundred and twenty-four cases and 
fifty-one boxes of the drug. 

Turkey and India Opium 

The trade with Turkey increased, though not very 
rapidly, during the first three decades of the century. Ves- 
sels from Boston and Salem appeared in 1806," and there 
had been one from New York the previous year. Th^ 
American shipping returns for the year 1823 show the clear- 
ance of 18 vessels: 12 of Boston; 1 of Salem; 1 of Duxbury; 
3 of Baltimore and 1 of Philadelphia. The following year 
there were 17 vessels, 14 of which were from Boston. They 
carried 1651 cases of opium. The largest amount of this 
drug reported as exported from Smyrna in any one year 
before 1830 was 1741 cases and chests. Complete figures are 
more difficult to obtain after 1828 for shortly before that 

115 



116 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

time the Turkey trade was shifted, in part, to Constanti- 
nople. That the trade was profitable is shown by the fact 
that one of the special agents employed by the United 
States at that time to study trade conditions with Turkey 
with a view to effecting a treaty with the Empire, reported 
that opium would probably prove to be one of the most 
profitable items in the trade. 

Direct voyages from Turkey to China were not common 
after the first few years. The opium was either shipped 
directly to American ports and then transshipped to China 
after subtracting the amount necessary for the American 
market, or else it was transferred to China-bound vessels in 
English ports. Sometimes, however, the cargoes were trans- 
shipped from one vessel to another at sea near Gibraltar.^ 

In China the Turkey opium was not so highly valued as 
that from India. It sold for less and was sometimes used 
in the adulteration of the higher priced product. It is 
quite impossible to determine with any precision the 
amounts of Turkey opium which were delivered in China, 
for the smuggling was great. The earliest figures from 
Canton show the following importations: Season 1805-6, 
102 chests; 1806-7, 180 chests; 1807-8, 150 chests. It is 
asserted by one who traded in it extensively that from 1827 
to 1830 the Americans disposed of from twelve to fourteen 
hundred piculs annually.* Whatever the amount, the 
Americans were thoroughly identified, in the minds of the 
Chinese, with Turkey opium.° When the survivors of the 
wrecked bark Sunda were taken to Canton in 1839 and had 
an interview with the commissioner, one of them reported: 

"He [the commissioner] asked the names of the places from 
whence the different kinds of opium were brought and requested me 
[Dr. Hill] to write them down for him, which I did. On mentioning 
Turkey, he asked if it did not belong to America, or form a part of 
it and seemed a good deal astonished on being told that it was nearly 
a month's sail distant." 

The Americans' share in the importation of opium from 
India is even more difl&cult to determine. American ships 
carried cargoes freely from British India to Canton, and in 



THE AMERICAN SHARE IN THE OPIUM TRADE 117 

these consignments opium eventually appeared. At the 
time of the surrender of the opium to Commissioner Lin in 
1839, out of a total of 20,283 chests, there were in the pos- 
session of Americans 1540 chests consigned to English firms. 
None of this consignment was from Turkey, but the Ameri- 
cans had about fifty cases of Turkey opium which they did 
not deliver.^ 

At no time did the American importation of opium form 
a very considerable share either of the total import of the 
drug or of the total amount of American imports, although 
it was reported in a Boston newspaper (1839) that 
the American interest in the ''opium affair at Canton" 
amounted to a million and a quarter dollars. This, how- 
ever, may have been an exaggeration. In the season 1818-9, 
the Americans are credited with importing 807 chests of 
Turkey opium alone, almost twenty per cent of the total 
import of the drug, but this was exceptional. Before 1840 
Americans usually received on consignment in Canton, or 
carried in American vessels not more than one tenth of the 
total importations of opium, amounting in value some years 
to slightly more than one tenth of the total American im- 
portations to China.'^ 

In the year 1800, in response to an Imperial edict, both 
the East India Company and the Chinese Co-hong ceased 
to handle the drug, and after 1809 the hong merchants were 
required to give bond that each ship secured by them car- 
ried no opium when it came up to the Whampoa anchorage. 
The trade was, however, carried on by the independent 
merchants openly in disregard of the edicts and with the 
connivance of the Chinese port authorities, until about 1821 
when the Chinese Government again assumed a menacing 
attitude. From that time on "receiving ships" were 
anchored at Lintin, forty miles down the bay, and the 
transactions were for the most part confined to the delivery 
of the opium to the receiving ships by the inbound vessels. 
The trade was gradually extended from Lintin by the dis- 
patch of small sailing vessels up and down the coast. The 
American flag flew over one or more of these receiving ships, 



118 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

probably without interruption, from 1821 until the readjust- 
ment in the trade caused by the beginning of the opium war. 
From these receiving ships was transacted other business, 
such as the sale of ship's supplies and the sale of enough 
rice to empty vessels to enable them to come to Whampoa as^ 
'rice ships' thus entering under the reduced port charges, 
but the most lucrative part of the trade was in opium. The 
owner of the American receiving ship at Lintin from 1830 
to 1832 stated that he had made there a sufficient fortune 
to enable him to leave China, as he then thought, for good. 
His explanation of his role as opium trader was 

"I shall not go into any argument to prove that I considered it 
right to follow the example of England, the East India Company, the 
countries that cleared it (opium) for China, and the merchants to 
whom I always have been accustomed to look up to as exponents of 
all that was honorable in trade." 

He then mentions four firms, two of Boston, one of Salem 
and one of New York.^ 

However, the leading American merchant at Canton, 
John P. Cushing, discontinued dealing in opium after the 
edict of 1821, perhaps influenced to do this by his good 
friend Houqua. Cushing left Canton in 1828. 

The Americans were far more deeply involved in the 
opium trade at that time than appears from any statistics. 
The existence of the trade itself conferred on them a direct 
commercial benefit, for it reduced the necessity for the im- 
portation of specie by the substitution of bills on London. 
Opium was sold in ever increasing quantities, and the 
Americans, as well as the English and other foreigners, used 
the bills thus obtained in place of specie to purchase their 
return cargoes. In this phase of the opium trade the 
Americans, all of them, benefited as much as, or more than, 
the other traders. As the supply of furs began to diminish, 
after 1820, and while the American cotton trade was in its 
infancy, the increased importation of opium from whatever 
country and by whomever transported, was a very impor- 
tant consideration. The system was vicious and short- 
sighted economically, as the merchants afterwards came to 



THE AMERICAN SHARE IN THE OPIUM TRADE 119 

see. The consumption of opium demoralized the producing 
and consuming powers of China, led to greatly increased 
importation of specie, and the ill-will of the people, but 
when the capital of the American merchants was still rela- 
tively small, and the supply of acceptable specie limited, 
the opium trade, like slaves and distilleries, entered into the 
foundation of many American fortunes. 

It is, therefore, the more remarkable that when the 
Chinese Government had clearly made up its mind to de- 
stroy the trade, there was so little effort made by the 
American merchants in China, or by their correspondents 
at home, to effect its legalization. It is also notable that 
at least one American firm, that of Talbot, Olyphant and 
Company of New York (Olyphant and Company of Can- 
ton), abstained entirely from the direct opium trade. 

Conflicts with Chinese — the Pledge 

Probably the most potent check on the growth of the 
American opium trade was the recognition of the fact that 
its existence was a constant menace to the maintenance of 
harmonious relations with the Chinese Government for, as 
has already been explained, peace was to the Americans 
the supreme virtue. More than twenty years before the 
advent of Commissioner Lin at Canton, the Americans had 
been made to feel the dangers of the opium traffic to peace- 
ful trade. 

The ship Wabash (Captain C. L. Gantt) of Baltimore, 
arrived in China May 22, 1817, with $7000 in specie and 
some opium. The vessel was boarded by pirates, the chief 
mate and some of the crew murdered or drowned, and the 
vessel looted. In making a report of the affair to the 
Governor, Consul Wilcocks wrote to the Secretary of State 
that "in enumerating the loss I was careful not to mention 
the opium." But his precautions were in vain for when 
the pirates were arrested some of the opium was found in 
their possession. "The latter circumstance," wrote Wil- 
cocks, "occasioned not a little disgust on the part of the 



120 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

Viceroy." However, the Viceroy sent a communication to 
the acting Hoppo (Customs officer), who in turn communi- 
cated it to the hong merchants, to give to the American 
consul, who was to report to the President of the Unitecl 
States of America what steps had been taken to apprehend 
and punish the pirates. 

This was followed by the first official notification ad- 
dressed directly to the Americans on the subject of opium. 
It was sent by the hong merchants to Wilcocks, and read 
as follows:'' 

"May He be Highly Promoted: 

"We approaeli to inform you that foreign opium, the dirt used in 
smoking, has long been prohibited by an order received; it is not 
allowed to come to Canton; if it is presumptuously brought, the 
moment it is discovered, it will immediately involve the security mer- 
chant; and the cause of the said vessel bringing the dirt for smoking 
to Canton will also assuredly be examined into; and a prosecution 
begun which will impede her departure. The consequences are ex- 
ceedingly important. We, being apprehensive that the foreign mer- 
chants of your honorable country who come to Canton to trade, may 
not all fully know the hindrance arising from bringing it to Canton, 
do therefore especially prepare a letter to inform you. 

"Benevolent Brother, to write a letter immediately back to your 
country and tell these things to your honorable country's president, 
that all the ships which come to Canton may be caused to know that 
Opium, the dirt used in smoking is an article 

THE CELESTIAL EMPIRE 

prohibits by an order received from the Son of Heaven, and hereafter, 
most positively, they must not buy it and bring it to Canton. 

"If they bring it, the moment we examine into it and find it out, 
certainly we will not dare to be security for the said ship, and more- 
over will assuredly report it fully to the Great Ofl&cers of the Gov- 
ernment who will, according to law, investigate and prosecute. De- 
cidedly you will not dare to conceal the affair for those (who import 
it) and thereby bring guilt on ourselves. The trade of the said ship 
will assuredly be impeded by the smoking dirt and when seeking to 
repeat, it will be a difficult thing (for the persons concerned) to find 
it availing. 

"Do not say that we did not speak soon enough. 

"We pray you. Benevolent Brother, to write a letter immediately 
and tell these things. It will be fortunate if you do not view it as a 
commonplace affair, and so delay, and cause future impediments. 

"To Mr. Wilcocks, Benevolent Brother, for his perusal, 

"We, Younger Brothers, commonly called — " (eleven nanies). 

John Quincy Adams, as Secretary of State, replied to 
Wilcocks : 



THE AMERICAN SHARE IN THE OPIUM TRADE 121 

"The Communication from the Co-hong merchants to yourself 
has been published {National Register, ISIS) agreeably to the wishes 
of those merchants." 

Jji 1821 a quarrel between the various Chinese officials 
and the Terranova case dragged once more the opium 
smuggling into the light of day. The practice of the British, 
American and Portuguese ships was exposed in a proclama- 
tion from the Viceroy.^" The guilt of the Americans was 
mitigated, observed the Viceroy, "because they had no king 
to rule them," but all foreigners were warned that the 
opium smuggUng must stop. Wilcocks was ordered by the 
hong merchants, at the request of the Viceroy, to investi- 
gate each American ship personally and put a watch on her, 
to see that she contained and disposed of no opium. The 
Robinson, an American vessel, was to be forbidden to come 
to the port again and the Emily, of Baltimore, to the crew 
of which the unfortunate Terranova had belonged, was to 
have half her cargo confiscated, and she also was to be 
forbidden the port. At length the Viceroy agreed to remit 
the confiscation of half of the cargo of the vessels, but re- 
marked in an edict to the hong merchants : 

"As to one of the four ships, viz., Cowpland's (the Emily of Balti- 
more) it contained merely about a thousand catties of foreign tin, 
worth scarcely anything — and it paid for port charges upwards of one 
thousand four hundred taels, from which it appears that the said 
vessel came for no other purpose but to sell opium — Infinitely 
Detestable. 

"Rightly did Heaven send down punishment, and cause Francis 
Terranova to commit a crime for which he was strangled. This ship 
should be punished more severely. Only as the other ships have had 
clemency extended to them, and the value of the cargoes given back, 
I shall remit the sentence on all equally, and shall deal with it as with 
the others to inflict a light punishment. 

"In one word 

THE CELESTIAL EMPIRE 

permits tea, rhubarb, etc., to be sold to keep alive the people of the 
said nations. Those persons who are annually kept alive thereby are 
more than ten thousand times ten thousand. How substantial a favor 
is this ! Yet these foreigners feel no gratitude ; nor wish to render a 
recompense ; but smuggle in prohibited opium, which flows and poisons 
the land. 



122 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

"When the conduct is referred to the heart, it must be disgusted. 
When referred to the reason, it is contrary to it. ^'^ 

"In broad day, on earth, there is the Royal Law. In Hades after 
death are gods and demons. These foreign ships pass an immense 
ocean, go through gales of wind, boisterous seas of unknown dangers, 
entirely preserved by the condescending protection of 

THE CELESTIAL GODS 

and therefore they should hereafter rouse themselves to a zealous 
reflection — to bitter recompense — to reformations — and alter their 
inhuman unreasonable conduct — and they will receive forever the 
gracious bounty of 

THE CELESTIAL EMPIRE." 

It was as a result of the effective measures taken by the 
Chinese and the dangers which the hong merchants now 
incurred by giving a bond for ships, that the opium business 
was removed from Canton and Whampoa to receiving ships 
at Lintin, 

That the crisis of 1839 had been brought on by the 
opium trade was clearly and frankly recognized by the 
American merchants when they addressed to Congress their 
memorial asking for a commissioner and a treaty. The 
memorialists made an honest statement of the condition 
of the traffic, drawing especial attention to the fact that 
while it had been carried on by smuggling the Chinese 
officials, from the lowest to the highest, had shared in the 
accompanying bribery, large amounts of opium having been 
delivered at Lintin directly to boats carrying the flags of 
the high officials, the chief customs ofl&cer and even the gov- 
ernor. The Americans pointed out that the Chinese Gov- 
ernment possessed ample power to control the trade and 
was now adopting a somewhat inconsistent and unjust 
method in that it was proceeding first not against its own 
subjects, but against the foreigners. This was a character- 
istic method of Chinese procedure. 

Before addressing the memorial to Congress most of the 
Americans at Canton had signed a 'Voluntary pledge" to 
abstain from the trade in the future. In this pledge the 
other foreign merchants had joined, and it is clear from the 
spirit of the memorial that the Americans, at the time they 



THE AMERICAN SHARE IN THE OPIUM TRADE 123 

signed it, supposed that the foreign opium trade of China 
was definitely finished. 

'Whether we view the subject in a moral and philanthropic light," 
stated the memorialists, "or merely as a commercial proposition, we 
are extremely desirous to see the importation and consumption of 
opium in China entirely at an end." " 

In subsequent years the vision of their signatures to 
this pledge to the Chinese and this memorial to Congress 
must have plagued the signers not a little, though it did 
not prevent them from evading and even openly violating 
the promises they had made. The British and the Parsee 
merchants were the first to forget their promises, and the 
Americans were not long in yielding to the demands of 
competition in a trade of which opium had become an 
integral part, but there is little doubt but at the time of 
signing these documents the Americans were perfectly 
sincere. 

However, three days after signing of the pledge, Com- 
mander George C. Read of the U. S. Frigate Columbia re- 
ported to the Secretary of the Navy from Macao: ^^ 

"There is yet much opium on board the English vessels now lying 
in the roads of this place, which will never be returned to the country 
from whence it came. A sale of it must be made here on the coast, 
and I shall not be surprised to hear of its being smuggled under 
American colors. If such illicit commerce should be persisted in, and 
vessels should be detected in the act, notwithstanding all the diffi- 
culties and dangers to which it would expose the foreigners at Canton, 
I feel that I should be justified in seizing them, but what to do with 
them afterwards would be a question of serious consideration, and 
merely to drive them off the coast would be to permit return. But I 
trust there are none among them so wicked." 

The opium trade began again almost immediately after 
the surrender of the twenty thousand chests, but the 
Americans for a time kept their pledge. One of the signers 
of the memorial to Congress, then the superintendent of 
Russell and Company, writing five years later said:^^ 

"The trade was carried on ... we believe, entirely by the British 
■ — the Americans having retired from it as soon as they found it to 
their interests to do so, fearing that it would embarrass their regular 



124 AMERIGANS IN EASTERN ASIA ^__ 

business, and knowing that tliey would be within the power of the 
local authorities of Canton, while the British were out of their reach 
at Macao and at Hongkong." 

On two subsequent occasions Consul Snow reported to 
the State Departments^ that so far as he knew there was 
not an American in China in any way engaged in the trade. 



Commodore Kearny's Action 

In response to the request of the Americans in Canton for 
Naval protection (presented to Congress January 9, 1840), 
Commodore Lawrence Kearny was dispatched to China in 
command of the East India Squadron with orders to pro- 
tect Americans, and also to take action against any Ameri- 
cans who might have entered the opium trade. He found 
upon his arrival, April, 1842, only two years after the pledge 
had been given, evidence not to be doubted ^^ that Captain 
Read's fears had been well grounded. The American flag 
was being used extensively to cover opium smuggling, and 
American citizens, as individuals, if not as firms, were ac- 
tively engaged in the trade. 

Immediately after his arrival Kearny requested the 
American vice consul at Canton, who was afterwards shown 
to be implicated in the smuggling, to have published the 
following letter i^^ 

"Sm: — The Hongkong Gazette of the 24th instant contains a 
shipping report in which is the name of an American vessel engaged 
in carrying opium, — therefore I beg yoii will cause to be made known 
with equal publicity, and also to the Chinese authorities by the trans- 
lation of the same, that the Government of the United States does not 
sanction 'the smuggling of opium' on this coast under the American 
flag in violation of the laws of China. Difficulties arising therefrom 
in respect to the seizure of any vessels by the Chinese, the claimants 
certainly will not under my instructions find support, or any inter- 
position on my part after the publication of this notice." 

The publication of this notice was greeted with derision 
by the English ^^ and lost some of its force when the Gov- 
ernor of Canton, a few days later addressed the hong mer- 
chants : 



THE AMERICAN SHARE IN THE OPIUM TRADE 125 

"I find, on examination, that the Americans haA^e acted in a 
manner most highly respectful and obedient. Their vessels hitherto 
engaged in the commerce of Canton, have always been confined to 
the legitimate and honorable trade, and never concerned with the 
carrying of opium." 

Kearny set about with earnestness to protect the Ameri- 
can flag from the stain of further opium smuggling, but 
received little cooperation from the consular officer. He 
remained on the China coast for more than a year, and 
just before he left actually arrested the Ariel, taking away 
her papers and sending her to Macao. To the Secretary of 
the Navy (May 19, 1843) he wrote from Amoy: 

"The American flag is now the only cover for this illicit trade, Sir 
Henry Pottinger having issued a proclamation against it; and the 
English craft having been turned away from the rivers, has placed 
the Americans in a peculiarly advantageous position, as freighters, 
under the flag of the United States. . . . 

"With regard to the Ariel, I have taken her papers and colors 
from her; and I have obliged her master to discharge the whole of her 
cargo here, and then he is to return to Macao. Her papers are en- 
dorsed by me in a manner which will render them unavailable, and 
are returned sealed to the consulate. Were it not for the risk, I would 
send her to the United States ; but she capsized once or twice in Bos- 
ton harbor before she sailed, and is now a dangerous vessel. Should 
I fall in with any sea-worthy vessels of her character, I shall send 
them home, that their case may be properly decided by the laws, of 
which the owners, as well as the consular establishment of the United 
States, seem to have been clearly regardless in making transfers that 
are illegal. These sham sales are well known, by which our national 
character is daily losing ground, and will so continue to do while the 
public consular duties are confined to merchants whose interests are so 
deeply involved in the transactions before cited." 

But the only ground Kearny could find on which to 
arrest the Ariel was not that she was an opium smuggler, 
but that her ownership was vested nominally in a man 
professing American citizenship, yet who had not been in 
the United States for at least six years. The Ariel quickly 
resumed trade again. She had been built and sent to China 
expressly for that purpose. 

Whatever may have been the legality of the transfer 
by which the fleet of American opium smugglers appeared 
in Chinese waters under other than their real ownership, 



126 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

the interested parties had not been inattentive to the status 
of United States law on the subject of smuggUng opium 
into China, as may be seen from the following incident. 

Commodore Foxhall A. Parker, commanding the East 
India Squadron, was ordered to proceed to Bombay in the 
latter part of 1843 and there take on board the newly 
appointed American commissioner and convey him to 
China, In his orders was the following item, substantially 
the same as Kearny's instructions three years before: ^^ 

"You will take all occasions to impress upon the Chinese and their 
authorities that one great object of your visit is to prevent and punish 
the smuggling of opium in China either by Americans, or by other 
nations under cover of the American flag, should it be attempted." 

While Parker was lying in the harbor waiting for the 
arrival of Cushing, Fletcher Webster, Secretary of the Mis- 
sion, arrived from Boston as a passenger on the brig 
Antelope. The vessel having disembarked her passenger, 
proceeded, under the nose of the U. S. East India Squadron, 
to load opium for China. Whereupon Parker looked up 
his instructions and tried to look up the American law on 
the subject. He reported (November 27, 1843) to the 
Secretary of the Navy : 

"I cannot find any law which will authorize my interfering to 
prevent or punish smuggling by Americans or others in foreign coun- 
tries. The only course that appears proper for me to pursue is not to 
interfere in their favor, should they be taken by the Chinese authori- 
ties. 

"The schooner Zephyr, of Boston, sailed from this port a few days 
ago for China, loaded with opium, and the brig Antelope, also of 
Boston, is now up for a freight of opium only, for the same place. 

"You will oblige me by sending particular instructions on this 
subject." 

But no instructions ever came. This episode ended any 
efforts on the part of the American naval officers to prevent 
opium smuggling. 

The American builders of the opium clippers had also 
not overlooked the fact that these vessels could look to no 
American authority for protection. In the first place they 



THE AMERICAN SHARE IN THE OPIUM TRADE 127 

were built to outsail any other ships afloat, and they did. 
In the second place they were heavily armed. The Ante- 
lope, for example, carried two guns on each side, besides a 
"Long Tom" amidships. Boarding pikes were arranged in 
great plenty on a rack around the main-mast, and the large 
arms chest on the quarter deck was well supplied with 
pistols and cutlasses. ''We were fully prepared," wrote one 
of the officers, "for a brush with the rascally Chinese and 
determined not to be put out of our course by one or two 
Mandarin boats." ^^ 

BIBLIOGEAPHICAL NOTES 

1. "Smyrna Consular Letters," Vol. 1, enclosure in, Wm. Steward, 

April 25, 1803, to Secretary of State. 

2. Smyrna Letters. 

3. Forbes' "Reminiscences," p. 124; Sessional Papers (1S30) Vol. 6, 

testimony of Joshua Bates, p. 378. 

4. Forbes' "China Trade," p. 27. 

5. Chinese Eepositoy, Vol. 8, Jan. 1840, p. 486. 

6. Hunter's "Fan Kwae," p. 146. 

7. Niles' Register, Oct. 12, 1839, p. 112, quoting- Boston Transcript; 

Morse's International Relations, Vol. 1, pp. 206-11. 

8. Forbes' "Reminiscences," p. 145. 

9. Canton Consular Letters, Vol. 1, Sept. 23, 1817, Wileocks to 

Secretary of State. 

10. S. Wells Williams' "Middle Kingdom," Vol. 2, pp. 379 ff; H. 

Doc. 71:26-2. 

11. H, Doc. 119 :26-l, p. 31 ; H. Doc. 40 :26-l. 

12. Captains' Letters (Navy Dept), May, 1839, No. 101. 

13. Forbes' "China Trade," p. 50. 

14. Canton Consular Letters, Vol. 3, Sept. 23, 1839, Jan. 11, 1840. 

15. S. Doc. 139 :29-l. The mere fact that these reports from Kearny 

were published is an indication of the policy of the Govern- 
ment of the United States. 

16. Chinese Repository, Vol. 11, April, 1842, p. 259. 

17. Canton Register, April 5, 1842'. 

18. East India Squadron Letters (Navy Dept.), Feb. 27, 1843,— 

Sept. 25, 1845, p. 36. 

19. Lubbock's "China Clippers," p. 26; Clark's "Clipper Ship Era," 

p. 68. 



CHAPTER VII 

PEEPAEATION FOE THE GUSHING MISSION 

In preparing to negotiate a treaty with China the 
United States was at a distinct disadvantage as compared 
with Great Britain, the only formidable commercial rival, 
for the American Government was without any large store 
of accumulated wisdom and precedents for dealing with 
Oriental states. Before making the Treaty of Nanking 
Great Britain had already concluded trade agreements or 
political treaties with nearly every native state of Africa 
and Asia with which the Western World was in contact. 
England was therefore merely extending her elaborate and 
closely integrated commercial system to include one more 
outpost. The appropriation of Hongkong for a military, 
naval and trade base was, for example, but the newest 
application of a policy of commercial expansion the tech- 
nique for which had been maturing for a century. The 
United States, in contrast, had entered into treaty relations 
with only two Asiatic states and in these instances the 
American efforts had been casual, unrelated to any general 
policy, and unproductive of much experience which could 
be turned to account in securing a treaty with China. 
However, a brief review of the mission of Edmund Roberts 
to Cochin China, Siam, and Muscat in 1832-4 is important 
not merely to complete a chapter of American history but 
also because the Roberts Mission did have some slight 
influence on the preparations for the Cushing Mission. 

The Edmund Roberts Mission 

Edmund Roberts of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, was 
a merchant and a supercargo ^ who had risen to the rank of 

128 



PREPARATION FOR THE GUSHING MISSION 129 

ship owner only to lose what little he had accumulated by 
"bare-faced robbery under the Berlin and Milan decrees," 
to use his own description of the process by which his prop- 
erty had been appropriated and his fortunes ruined. For a 
number of years he had engaged in fruitless efforts to re- 
habilitate himself but with little success. In 1823 he was 
appointed United States Consul at Demarara. Four and 
a half years later he was a supercargo on an American vessel 
at Zanzibar where he was subjected to vexatious delays and 
impositions by the officers of the Sultan of Muscat. To 
his Highness he addressed a letter complaining that Ameri- 
can vessels were not being received upon equal terms with 
those of England. He invited the Sultan to enter into 
correspondence with the American Government and sug- 
gested that he offer to make a treaty with the United States. 
Roberts did not fail to point out to the Sultan that the 
United States "can never come in contact with your High- 
ness as the English Government will, sooner or later, for 
it is contrary to the constitution of the United States to 
own colonies out of their proper territory. Acts of this kind 
have been the cause of more devastating war than any or 
all the other outrages put together." 

The Sultan was so impressed with the representations 
of Roberts that, although he did not wholly comply with 
his requests, he did ask the American supercargo to procure 
for him some bombs and shells with which to drive out the 
Portuguese, and enjoined Roberts to keep the matter secret 
from the English. 

Roberts on this voyage probably penetrated the Orient 
no farther than Bombay. Immediately upon his return to 
the United States he took up with Levi Woodbury, senator 
from New Hampshire, the suggestion which had evidently 
been in his mind at Zanzibar, viz., "that considerable benefit 
would result from effecting treaties with some of the native 
powers bordering on the Indian Ocean." 

Meanwhile the British Governor General of India suc- 
ceeded in making a treaty with Siam in 1826. While the 
negotiation of this treaty was in pro.cess John Shellaber, 



130 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

United States Consul at Batavia, sought a commission to 
negotiate treaties with some of the independent native 
sovereigns near Java, having particularly in mind a treaty 
with Siam.^ 

The report of the plundering of the pepper ship Friend- 
ship of Salem by the natives of Quallah Battoo on the 
northwest coast of Sumatra in 1830 roused the Government 
of the United States to action. Meanwhile Edmund Rob- 
erts, with the persistence which was his most conspicuous 
characteristic, had been pressing his suggestion upon Levi 
Woodbury who became Secretary of the Navy in the Jack- 
son administration. In 1831 Shellaber came home from 
Batavia on leave and renewed the proposition which he had 
made six years before. Shellaber returned to his post the 
next year supposing that he was to be designated to the 
mission which was then decided upon but Roberts, backed 
by his influential friend Woodbury, received the appoint- 
ment January 26, 1832. The government directed the 
U. S. S. Potomac, the sloop Peacock, and the schooner 
Boxer, to undertake an expedition against the natives of 
Quallah Battoo,^ and at the request of the Navy Depart- 
ment, Roberts was made a special agent of the United 
States to meet, confer, treat, and negotiate with the kings 
of Siam and Cochin China. He was assigned to the Pea- 
cock where he was entered on the rolls as "secretary to the 
commander." The reason given for the creation of this 
somewhat equivocal and ignominious role was secrecy, but 
it is difficult to resist the conclusion that it was a fair index 
of the importance of the mission in the estimation of the 
government. The salary was fixed at $1200, and only after 
pleadings by Roberts was it increased to $1500. During 
part of the outward voyage the special agent was compelled 
to sleep on the gun deck of the Peacock — an indication, per- 
haps, of the prevailing customary scorn of naval officers for 
civilians. 

From the outset the Department of State appears to 
have been far more interested in securing a treaty with 
Japan and set about collecting the necessary information. 



PREPARATION FOR THE GUSHING MISSION 131 

Some of this was secured from Shellaber, who as consul at 
Batavia had been famihar with the Dutch trade at Naga- 
saki, and some of it came from unknown sources. Before 
Roberts left the United States in 1832 the State Depart- 
ment was in possession of a large part of the information 
about Japan on which the Perry expedition twenty years 
later was based. A commission, similar to those already 
issued for Cochin China and Siam, to negotiate with Japan 
was issued to Roberts July 6, 1832. 

The subject of diplomatic relations with Oriental des- 
pots presented some embarrassments peculiar to a republi- 
can government. In submitting an outline program for 
the proposed negotiations Shellaber wrote to the Secretary 
of State: 

''I beg leave to suggest that there be no expression in_ the letters 
(from the President) to these sovereigns (of Siam, Cochin China and 
Japan), or credentials of the mission, that may lead those people to 
think that the United States is a republic. Those despots would af- 
fect to become alarmed at an intercourse with the United States as 
free as it is, if they come at the knowledge of its peculiar government 
through its own official papers." 

From the Rev. Robert Morrison, the famous British 
missionary and sinologue of the East India Company at 
Canton, to whom Roberts had written soliciting advice as 
to the proper manner to approach such potentates, Roberts 
had received some instructions which were valuable and are 
especially interesting as coming from one who had a real 
sympathy for the Asiatic, a thorough knowledge of his 
ways, and had also been the Chinese secretary and inter- 
preter of the unsuccessful Lord Amherst Embassy to Peking 
in 1816. The advice was to avoid vague pretexts and spe- 
cial excuses, and to approach the kings directly and boldly 
as the representative of an independent people who would 
have nothing to do with "kowtowing." The relationship to 
be established must be reciprocal, not that of lord and 
vassal. Roberts was warned, however, not to make himself 
"too cheap" in the negotiations; he was to be kind and 
courteous, but to insist on "some little formalities." A 
little display and show of clothing, Morrison thought, 



132 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

would have a certain weight and create a favorable im- 
pression. 

Roberts advised the Department of State that "in ne- 
gotiations with the Asiatics all apparent acknowledgment 
of inferiority which precedes the signature to letters such 
as 'your humble servant' would be construed all too liter- 
ally by the potentates of Asia and ought therefore to be 
avoided in drafting the letters from President Jackson. 

The considerations raised by Shellaber, Morrison and 
Roberts required careful thought but the Government of 
the United States decided, while not flaunting its republi- 
canism, nevertheless, not to conceal its true colors. The 
letters from President Jackson carried by Roberts in 1832 
did not obscure the fact that Andrew Jackson was "Presi- 
dent of the United States" and the unbending salutation 
"Great and Good Friend" fairly throbbed with a repub- 
licanism such as the despots of Asia had never envisaged 
in their worst dreams. 

Secretary of State Livingston even went so far as to de- 
cide not to send any presents with Roberts, but at the 
latter's earnest solicitation this decision was reversed. The 
list of the gifts included: 100 rifles, 100 muskets, 100 sets 
of infantry accouterments, 2 heavily gold-mounted swords, 
2 full length mirrors, 10 pairs of lamps, 250 yards of car- 
peting, 5 pairs of stone statues for the king and officials 
of Siam; and 2 pairs of glass lamps, a sword, a rifle and a 
pair of pistols, a silk flag and a map of the United States, 
and a set of the gold, silver and copper coins of the United 
States, for the Sultan of Muscat. A steam engine mounted 
on a "highly polished rail car" and a "railroad 12 feet in 
diameter which can be screwed to the floor of the room" 
was also included in the purchases, but owing to a delay in 
the shipments this unusual present appears never to have 
reached its intended recipient. 

The Potomac sailed for Quallah Battoo in advance of 
the Peacock and when the latter reached Anjier Roads the 
expedition to Sumatra had been completed. Roberts was 
therefore free to devote himself directly to the gentler 



PREPARATION FOR THE GUSHING MISSION 133 

methods of diplomacy. After securing the services of J. R. 
Morrison, as interpreter, the Peacock set sail from Macao 
for the coast of Cochin China. The Boxer, which had been 
intended for the use of the mission in approaching the 
shallow harbors, had not yet arrived, and the Peacock found 
it impossible to approach closely to Hue. Contact with 
the local officials was established farther down the coast, 
but Roberts met with obstacles. The Cochin Chinese im- 
mediately raised questions of etiquette and the kowtow, 
and the American envoy refused to yield. The Peacock 
departed for Siam in disgust. At Bankok the reception 
was all that could be desired, and a treaty was concluded 
March 30, 1833. The linguistic difficulties of the negotia- 
tions are evident in the fact that the text of the treaty 
was in four languages — English, Chinese, Portuguese and 
Siamese. 

The Roberts treaty with Siam, when compared with the 
British treaty of 1826, shows no notable differences. By it 
American vessels secured a very great reduction in the 
measurement dues such as the British had already secured. 
There were to be no import or export duties, and freedom 
of trade without governmental interference was stipulated. 
There was no slightest suggestion of extraterritorial con- 
cessions. From the American treaty, however, was omitted 
certain provisions which had been included in the British 
treaty defining the procedure and penalties in cases of man- 
slaughter. 

Roberts attempted to secure the legalization of 
the opium trade which had been prohibited in the 
British treaty, but at the last minute this Valuable 
and highly profitable' article was placed in the list of 
contrabands. 

At Batavia Roberts received from Secretary of State 
Livingston a letter again instructing him to proceed to 
Japan, but Roberts decided that such an expedition at that 
time would be impractical. The terms of service on the 
Peacock were soon to expire, and Roberts was without 
funds to provide for the Shogun presents which would 



134 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

stand comparison with those sent annually by the Dutch. 
The wind was fair for Muscat and the Peacock took ad- 
vantage of it. There is no evidence that the American Gov- 
ernment had any real interest in that part of the Mission 
which was however very near to Roberts' heart because 
of his previous experience at Zanzibar. 

A treaty with the Sultan, the first commercial treaty 
he had ever signed, was concluded September 21, 1833. It 
provided for a reduction of duties from seven and one-half 
per cent on both exports and imports to a single five per 
cent charge to be levied merely on such goods as were 
landed. There was to be no export duty and no pilotage 
charge. The treaty also contained a most-favored-nation 
clause. Extraterritoriality was stipulated to the extent that 
the American consul was to be the exclusive judge of all 
disputes and suits in which American citizens were en- 
gaged with each other. Six years later the British Govern- 
ment made a treaty with the Sultan which included the 
advantages gained under the American treaty and added to 
them amplified extraterritorial concessions. 

The treaties with Siam and Muscat were duly ratified 
by the Senate and in March, 1835, Roberts was commis- 
sioned to exchange their ratifications. He was also directed 
to resume the negotiations with Cochin China and then 
to proceed to Japan. His compensation was increased to 
$4,400 a year but his request for an increase in rank was 
not granted. He exchanged the ratifications as planned but 
at Bankok contracted a disease which made his efforts to 
get into communication with the authorities at Cochin 
China fruitless, and as his illness increased it became neces- 
sary to hurry on to Macao where he died June 12, 1836. 
The untimely death of Roberts brought to an end the pro- 
posed mission to Japan. 

Webster Consults the Merchants 

The omission of China from the program of Edmund 
Roberts on both the first and the second missions is signifi- 



PREPARATION FOR THE GUSHING MISSION 135 

cant. Neither Roberts or Shellaber had urged a treaty with 
China and there had been no demand for it among the 
China merchants. 

As soon as Congress had approved of the proposed 
China mission in 1843, and before it was known who would 
be the commissioner, Daniel Webster sent a circular letter 
to most of the American merchants resident in Boston, 
Salem, New York and elsewhere, engaged in the China 
trade, inviting suggestions. This letter received from 
many persons very careful attention and the replies to it 
are the best sources of information as to the attitude 
of the American merchants towards the trade at that 
time. 

It is significant that only one reply even mentions the 
subject of opium.*^ This firm wrote: 

"It is most likely that the Chinese Government will urge the Com- 
missioner to interpose the authority of his office to prevent the par- 
ticipation of citizens of the United States in the opium trade. But 
we conceive it would be extremely impolitic to assume any engage- 
ments whatever concerning this traffic that would require for their 
fulfillment the restraining, controlling, or influencing of our citizens 
in any degree. They have always been more or less engaged in the 
trade and probably always will be, however repugnant it unques- 
tionably is to justice and humanity. We believe that ultimately the 
Emperor will find it necessary to legalize the traffic under the im- 
position of heavy duties." 

Seven Boston firms and individual merchants united in 
a joint reply to Webster's request. This letter was pre- 
pared by John M. Forbes, a partner in the firm of Russell 
and Company who, though then a resident in the United 
States, had served his apprenticeship in China.^ This com- 
munication made the following recommendations: 

(1) The Mission should be accompanied by a respectable fleet, 
because many of the Chinese are now under the impression that the 
United States has only two naval vessels. 
I (2) No presents, as such, should be sent, lest the Chinese should 
\ call them tribute. But this ought not to prevent some tactful repre- 
sentations of friendship. "The Chinese look upon us as friends, but 
they have a great fear of encroachment by other foreign nations, and 
if we could, in a quiet way, without infringing upon the courtesies 



136 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

due to Great Britain, contribute anything to the means of defense 
against further aggression it would open the eyes of the Emperor to 
the value of an alliance with us, more than the prospect of increasing 
their trade a hundred fold." 

(3) The Mission will find it necessary first to stop at Macao but 
possibly it ought to go on to Canton, or preferably to the mouth of 
the Pei-ho. 

(4) The Provincial authorities at Canton should be informed in 
advance of the coming of the Mission, and should be notified that it 
will proceed to the North. 

(5) Two interpreters will be 'necessary. Dr. Peter Parker is 
recommended. 

(6) The commissioner must be warned that the Chinese will be 
disposed to contest every point. An appeal to arms may be necessary, 
and it will be well, if possible, to follow the English in making a 
treaty. If the English do not go to Peking, the American minister 
must exercise "infinite caution" about going there. "All experience 
in Chinese affairs shows that no foreign nation ever yet gained any 
disputed point by peaceful negotiation." 

The letter closes with some general advice. The signers 
assume that the United States is not prepared to enforce 
the reception of an envoy, or the making of a treaty. 
Nevertheless the opportunity is such that, although the 
Americans already enjoy all the privileges possessed by the 
English, it may be possible to secure by treaty what other- 
wise would be enjoyed only by the sufferance of the Chi- 
nese. However, it would be well not to become involved 
in any questions of diplomacy in such a way as to lose the 
privileges which are already enjoyed. In conclusion the 
merchants give the cautious advice, born of half a century 
of experience, "If our Envoy does not see his way to suc- 
ceed, let him do nothing ; let him wait the proper time to 
act, and if his patience fail, let him be authorized to return 
home, leaving some member of his mission as Charge to 
wait an opening." 

Many of the other replies to Webster's letter mentioned 
that a merchant should not be chosen as commissioner, 
because of the low esteem in which merchants were held by 
the Chinese. Among the grievances mentioned which the 
commissioner must seek to correct were the delay and 
method of settling claims, especially those against the in- 
solvent hong merchants, excessive tonnage dues, the cor- 



PEEP^FjAiiON FOR THE GUSHING MISSION 137 

ruption of the customs house officials, and the arbitrary 
stopping of the entire trade.* 

A memorandum note, in the archives of the State De- 
partment,'^ countersigned by President Tyler, shows the 
following list of furnishings with which the Mission was 
to be provided : a set of best charts, and if possible a globe ; 
a pair of 6-shooting pistols, rifles, etc.; model of war- 
steamer; model of a steam excavator; Daguerreotype ap- 
paratus ("it can be purchased, perhaps, in France"); some 
approved works on fortification, gunnery, ship-building, 
military and naval strategy, geology, chemistry, and the 
"Encyclopedia Americana"; a telephone, spy-glass, barom- 
eter, and thermometer; and some useful articles made of 
India rubber. Against the item "a model of a locomotive 
steam engine, and a plan of railroad, is the pencilled nota- 
tion: "Will require too much time to prepare. J. T." 

Instructions to Gushing 

The official instructions, prepared by Secretary of State 
Webster, to guide the actions and negotiations of the first 

*0n March 22, 1843, Levi Lincoln, collector of the port of Boston, trans- 
mitted to Daniel Webster, at the latter's request, the following list of the prin- 
cipal Boston and Salem houses aiid individuals engaged in the China trade : 

William Appleton & Co. Boston 

J. L. Gardner & Co. " 

J. M. Forbes " 

ITaniel C. Bacon " 

Daniel P. Parker " 

Bryant, Sturgis & Co. " 

J. J. Dixwell " 

Minot and Hooper " 

P. W. Macondray " 

Alfred Richardson " 

Joseph Peabddy Salem 
Stephen C. Phillips 

David A. Neal & Bros. " 

David Pingree " 

Michael Shepard & Co. " 

On March 24, 1843, J. S. Hone, assistant collector of the port of New York, 
transmitted the following names for New York : 

N. L. & G. Griswold 
Talbot, Olyphant & Co. 
Howland & Aspinwall 
Grinnell, Minturn & Co. 
Cary & Co. 
Gordon & Talbot 
Boorman, Johnston & Co. 
Alfred A. Low. 
Goodhue & Co. 

Presumably letters were addressed to all of these firms, inviting suggestions, 
though not all of them appear to have replied. 



138 AMERICANS IN EASTERiN ASL^ 

American commissioner constitute the first official declara- 
tion of American policy for China.^ 

The primary object of the Mission was to be "to secure 
the entry of American ships and cargoes into these ports 
[Amoy, Ningpo, Foochow and Shanghai, which had been 
opened to English trade by the treaty of Nanking, August 
25, 1842] on terms as favorable as those which are en- 
joyed by English merchants." As to the manner of the 
negotiations the instructions were very explicit. Gushing 
was to use the greatest tact towards the Chinese in allaying 
"their repulsive feelings towards foreigners." "Your con- 
stant aim," stated the instructions, "must be to produce a 
full conviction in the minds of the Government and the 
people, that your mission is entirely pacific ; that you come 
with no purposes of hostility or annoyance; that you are 
a messenger of peace, sent from the greatest Power in 
America to the greatest Empire in Asia, to offer respect and 
good will and to establish the means of friendly inter- 
course." In this connection the Gommissioner was in- 
structed to make very clear that the American Government, 
so far from supporting its citizens in smuggling of any sort, 
would relinquish all jurisdiction over such traders and "will 
not interfere to protect them from the consequences of their 
own illegal conduct." 

Another method suggested to prove the friendly 
intent of the Americans, was to point out the contrasts 
between the United States and England. 

"It cannot be wrong for you to make known, where not known, 
that the United States, once a country subject to England, threw off 
the subjection years ago, asserted its independence sword in hand, 
established that independence after a seven years' war, and now meets 
England upon equal terms upon the ocean and upon the land. The 
remoteness of the United States from China, and still more the 
fact that they have no colonial possessions in her neighborhood, will 
naturally lead to the indulgence of a less suspicious and more friendly 
feeling than may have been entertained towards England, even before 
the late war between England and China. It cannot be doubted that 
the immense power of England in India must be regarded by the 
Chinese Government with dissatisfaction, if not with some degree 
of alarm. You will take care to show strongly how free the Chinese 



PREPARATION FOR THE GUSHING MISSION 139 

Government may well be from all jealousy arising from such causes 
towards the United States." 

On the other hand Gushing was warned not to adopt 
any manner which could in any way be interpreted as 
placing him in the category of 'tribute-bearer/ where Lord 
Macartney, the Dutch commissioner, and Lord Amherst 
had been classified by the Chinese in 1793, 1795, and 1816, 
respectively. ''You will signify to all Chinese authorities 
and others," read the instructions, "that it is deemed to be 
quite below the dignity of the Emperor of China and the 
President of the United States of America to be concerning 
themselves with such unimportant matters as presents from 
one to the other; that the intercourse between the heads 
of two such governments should be made to embrace only 
great political questions, the tender of mutual regard, and 
the establishment of useful relations." 

A secondary object, quite subordinate to the first, was 
to reach the Emperor at Peking. The instructions to pro- 
ceed to the capital of the empire were to be used as a lever 
for securing the primary object of the mission, rather than 
to be considered as constituting a primary purpose. "It is, 
of course, desirable that you should be able to reach Peking 
and the Court, and the person of the Emperor. , . . The 
purpose of seeing the Emperor must be persisted in as long 
as may be consistent and proper." The commissioner was 
accordingly instructed very carefully, in case he reached 
Peking, not to perform the kotow, on the double ground 
that it would compromise the independence of the United 
States before the Chinese, and that it would be a violation 
of religious principles. 'You will represent to the Chinese 
authorities, nevertheless, that you are directed to pay to 
His Majesty the Emperor, the same marks of respect and 
homage as are paid by your government to His Majesty 
the Emperor of Russia, or any other of the great Powers 
of the world." 

In consonance with these instructions, and as still further 
evidence that the American Government wished to keep 
its hands entirely clean of the opium trade, the commis- 



140 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

sioner received (June 12, 1843) from Mr. Legare, who had 
succeeded Webster as acting Secretary of State, positive 
instructions to investigate the charge that the newly ap- 
pointed consul at Canton "is likely to be associated in 
business with a firm avowedly engaged in the opium trade," 
and if the charge was proved, unless the consul would agree 
to resign voluntarily, to "remove him immediately. No re- 
port was ever rendered by Cushing on this duty, nor was 
one ever officially asked for. According to all the evidence 
now available it would appear that the charge was entirely 
well founded, although it may have been true, until after 
the visit of Cushing, that only some of the individual 
partners, rather than the firm itself, were directly engaged 
in the trade. 

In addition to his instructions Cushing carried two 
letters signed by President Tyler, and addressed to the 
Emperor of China, one, "a full power," authorizing Cushing 
"to sign any treaty which may be concluded" between the 
commissioner and the Emperor's authorized representative ; 
the other "a letter of credence to the Emperor, to be com- 
municated or delivered to the Sovereign in such manner 
as may be most convenient or agreeable to His Majesty to 
receive it." 

Something of mystery attaches to these letters. The 
former, containing the "full power" is brusque, stiff and 
ungracious. It contains one paragraph beginning — "The 
Chinese love to trade with our people, and to sell them tea 
and silk, for which our people pay silver, and sometimes 
other articles" — which was certain to be regarded by the 
Chinese authorities as either a studied insult to the Em- 
peror, who never demeaned himself to recognize as a con- 
sideration the profits of mere merchants, or as a colossal 
breach of good manners by uncouth barbarians. The other 
letter, briefer, is very different in tone and literary style.* 

♦This second letter is probably the one referred to in a communication from 
Cushing to the State Department (June 27, 1843) after Webster's resignation 
in which the commissioner encloses "a draft prepared by Mr. Webster of the 
President's letter to the Emperor of China. Please submit it to Mr. Upshur for 
the approval of the President and himself. It was Mr. Webster's plan to have 
it copied in an ornamental form and placed in a suitable box." * 



PREPARATION FOR THE GUSHING MISSION 141 

The other letter, the one which the commissioner upon 
his arrival presented to show the authority vested in him 
to conclude a treaty, and usually ascribed to Webster, was 
more likely prepared by Mr. Upshur, and might have been 
a serious handicap to Gushing in his initial efforts to estab- 
lish cordial relations with the Chinese Government. It 
was, in part, as follows : 

"I, John Tyler, President of the United States of America — which 
states are: Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Ehode Island, 
Connecticut, Vermont, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Dela- 
ware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, 
Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Louisiana, Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, 
Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas, and Michigan — send you this letter 
of peace and friendship, signed by my own hand. 

"I hope your health is good. . . . 

"Now, my words are, that the governments of two such great 
countries should be at peace. It is proper, and according to the will 
of Heaven, that they should respect each other and act wisely. I 
therefore send to your Court Caleb Cushing, one of the wise and 
learned men of this country. On his first arrival in China, he will 
enquire after your health. He has then strict orders to go to your 
great city of Pekin, and there to deliver this letter. He will have with 
him secretaries and interpreters. 

". . . Our Minister, Caleb Cushing, is authorized to make a treaty 
to regulate trade. Let it be just. Let there be no unfair advantage 
on either side. . . . We shall not take the part of evil-doers. We 
shall not uphold them that break your laws. Therefore, we doubt not 
that you will be pleased that our messenger of peace, with this letter 
in his hand, shall come to Pekin, and there deliver it ; that your great 
officers will, by your order, make a treaty with him to regulate affairs 
of trade — so that nothing may happen to disturb the peace between 
China and America. Let the treaty be signed by your own Imperial 
hand. It shall be signed by mine, by the authority of our great coun- 
cil, the Senate." 

While the style and tone of this letter was hardly in 
keeping with the instructions as to tact and courtesy, 
nevertheless the veiled threat, implied in the conclusion, 
was fully in harmony with the policy already fixed. The 
last instruction to Cushing was: 

"Finally, you will signify, in decided terms and a positive manner, 
that the Government of the United States would find it impossible 
to remain on terms of friendship and regard with the Emperor, if 
greater privileges or commercial facilities should be allowed to the 
subjects of any other Government than should be granted to the citi- 
\E;ens of the United States." 



142 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

Caleb Gushing Goes to Macao 

The Ghina Mission as finally organized consisted of 
Galeb Gushing, Commissioner; Fletcher Webster, Secre- 
tary; Dr. E. K. Kane, afterwards known for his Arctic ex- 
plorations. Surgeon; and a group of young men who went 
on their own charges, "supplying dignity and importance 
to the occasion," as Webster described it. The commis- 
sioner's ofiicial costume consisted of the "uniform of a 
major-general, with some slight additions in the way of 
embroideries," a showiness much deprecated by some plain 
Americans.^" The Mission arrived at Macao February 24, 
1844, on the Brandywine, and Gushing established "his 
miniature court in the house of a former Portuguese Gov- 
ernor, creating a profound sensation by the novelty and 
magnitude of his Mission, as well as by his attractive per- 
sonal qualities." ^^ 

On arrival Gushing added to his staff Rev. E. G. Bridg- 
man, D. D., and. Rev. Peter Parker, M. D., who had been 
in China since 1830 and 1834 respectively, as joint Chinese 
secretaries. Later S. Wells Williams also assisted in the 
Chinese correspondence. This was a somewhat reassuring 
move, for these men had a better knowledge of the language 
than any other Europeans in Canton at the time, and also 
a better understanding of Chinese etiquette and modes of 
thought, and the history of preceding American relations 
with China. In addition t(j these qualifications they were 
well known to the Chinese. Dr. Parker had won their re- 
spect and confidence by his hospital, and Dr. Bridgman had 
been so honored by former Commissioner Lin as to have 
been invited to come to him for a special conference early 
in 1839 with a view to securing his advice and good offices 
in mitigating the acute difficulties which grew up over the 
surrender of the opium. 

Dr. Bridgman was also made official chaplain. Gushing 
wrote to the New York Commercial Advertiser: ^^ 

"The newspapers will have informed you that Dr. Bridgman and 
Dr. Parker are joint interpreters. It ought to be understood in addi- 



PREPARATION FOR THE GUSHING MISSION 143 

tion that Dr. Bridgman is chaplain of the legation in title and in fact. 
I have deemed it essential to have religious services performed at the 
residence of the legation every Lord's day and shall adhere to this 
practice so long as my mission lasts." 

Two months after Cushing's arrival ^^ an American 
merchant of Canton wrote: 

"Tour townsman, Mr. Gushing, is quietly living at Macao, pre- 
paring, as he says, to go to Peking. When at Macao I had the honor 
of seeing much of his excellency (Gushing) who has spurs on his 
heels, and mustachios and imperial, very flourishing! Although I 
like the man, I most heartily wish he were anywhere else but here and 
am, as well as every other American merchant here, in great fear. As 
Americans we are now on the very hest terms possible with the 
Ghinese; and as the only connection we want with Ghina is a com- 
mercial one, I cannot see what Mr. Gushing expects to do. He cannot 
make us better ofl^ — and a very few of his important airs will make 
us hated by the Ghinese, and then we lose all the advantages we now 
have over the English; and though I believe Mr. G. to be as honest 
as the most of politicians, yet I fear for the sake of being, as he 
hopes, put face to face with Taoukwang (Emperor) he will sacrifice his 
countrymen and the good will of the Ghinese and lose all." 

The question raised by the American merchant was 
pertinent. What could Gushing do that had not already 
been done? The English were disposed to treat with de- 
rision both the American and the French missions, the 
coming of which had already been announced. The London 
Times, in an article which was discussing the British Sup- 
plementary Treaty of 1843, said:^* 

"This treaty is looked upon in the East as the most signal triumph 
of the British plenipotentiary, for it renders nugatory all the attempts 
of the French and American diplomatic missions lately sent with such 
pomp to the Ghinese coast. Laughter has already begun at the ap- 
pearance of two ambassadors sent thither before it was known that 
they would be received, in order to gain a purpose which was granted 
before they appeared. They now have no grounds for negotiation 
and must return to their own country in order to be laughed at at 
home and abroad." 

The situation was, indeed, quite unlike that in which the 
American merchants in Canton, immediately after six 
weeks imprisonment in the spring of 1839, had been led to 
petition Congress to send out a commissioner to effect a 
commercial treaty. 



144 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 



BIBLIOGEAPHICAL NOTES 

1. The three sources of information for Edmund Roberts are : The 

Roberts Papers in the Department of State; the Roberts Papers 
in the Library of Congress (Mss. Div.) ; and "Embassy to the 
Eastern Courts of Cochin China, Siam and Muscat," by 
Roberts himself, and published posthumously (New York, 
1837). The book is the least satisfactory of these sources be- 
cause the Department of State raised objections to its publica- 
tion, and to comply with its wishes as regards secrecy, particu- 
larly as to the plans for a treaty with Japan, a great deal of 
information was suppressed. A partial report of his first mis- 
sion was printed in the Congressional Globe. 

2. Batavia Consular Letters, Vol. 1, Feb. 27, 1826. 

3. PauUin's "American Naval Vessels in the Orient." 

4. Text of the letters which are identical to each sovereign, 

Robert's "Embassy, etc.," p. 204. 

5. Miscellaneous Letters (Dept. of State), N. & G. Griswold to 

Webster, May 13, 1843. 

6. Op. cit. Eorbes to Webster, April 29, 1843; see also "Letters 

and Recollections of John Murray Forbes," Vol. 1, p. 115. 

7. Misc. Letters (Dept. of State), April 11, 1843. 

8. S. Doc. 138:28-2; Webster's Works, Vol. 6, pp. 467-9. 

9. China Dispatches, Vol. 1. 

10. Mies' Register, July 15, 1843, p. 308. 

11. S. Wells Williams' "Life and Letters," p. 126. 

12. Niles' Register, August 3, 1844, p. 363. 

13. Ihid., Sept. 21, 1844, p. 36. 

14. Ihid., Feb. 10, 1844, p. 369. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE POLICY OF CALEB CUSHING 

In taking up the discussion of the contribution of Caleb 
Cushing to the body of American policy in Asia we are 
again reminded of the fact that this policy at any given 
date might more correctly be described as the policy of 
Americans — a descrimination which need not be entirely 
limited to American foreign policies in Asia. 

Before the advent of Cushing at Macao in 1844, there 
had been a sharply defined policy in China. It was the 
policy of the American residents fully approved and sup- 
ported by the opinion of the merchants in the United States 
who were engaged in the China trade and shipping. This 
policy had grown up out of the economic, geographical and 
political necessities of the situation. The Americans had 
had no other choice than to seek peace and pursue it. 
Whether they would have adopted a different course had 
China been a part of the mainland of the western hemi- 
sphere is a purely speculative, though interesting, question. 
The success which had attended the policy adopted was, 
at any rate, a sufficient justification. There had been some 
complaints of injustice and of discrimination but they had 
been few and on the whole one could not claim that the 
secondary commercial position occupied by the Americans 
at Canton in 1844, or the fluctuating and uncertain growth 
of the trade in the preceding twenty-five years was in any 
way due to that policy. 

In the United States during this period the fullest ex- 
pression of policy towards the entire East India trade had 
comprised nothing more than the demand for most-favored- 
nation treatment. Within a decade, however, there had 
grown up a public sentiment against the opium trade. One 

145 



146 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

detects also in the discussions of the Anglo-Chinese War 
the beginnings of a tone of resentment at Chinese arrogance. 
To the growing restiveness of Americans at the exclusive 
policy of the Government of China the American mis- 
sionaries were making important contributions, as the pages 
of the Chinese Repository clearly reveal. China must 
'bend or break/ ^ remarked the missionaries in 1840; the 
missionaries had never been able really to establish them- 
selves under the existing regime. 

Daniel Webster in his instructions to Gushing may be 
said to have oflGLcialized existing public sentiment. One does 
not find that in these instructions, fine as they are in diction 
and spirit, Webster had made any contribution to the body 
of policy. He asked primarily for most-favored-nation 
treatment in matters of trade. To Caleb Gushing ex- 
clusively was reserved the privilege and credit of working 
out a method by which the Americans, whose geographical 
and political relations to China must continue to be utterly 
different from those of the British, might still enjoy similar 
privileges. 

The Negotiations 

The political situation when Gushing reached Macao, 
February 24, 1844, was as follows: (1) By two treaties, 
that of Nanking (1842), and that of the Bogue (1843), 
England had secured a peace with China granting, in ad- 
dition to $21,000,000 and the cession of Hongkong, the 
opening of four additional ports, the liberty to appoint 
consuls to each of them, abolition of all monopolies, a 
uniform published tariff, equality between officials of cor- 
responding rank of the two countries, and an assent in 
general terms to complete extraterritoriality. (2) By the 
action of the Chinese Government, confirmed in a written 
promise to Commodore Kearny, and executed by an Im- 
perial edict, the ports had been thrown open to the trade 
of all nations upon equal terms. Moreover, the Americans 
were on the full tide of their greatest prosperity, at the 
beginning of the clipper ship era, highly popular by com- 



THE POLICY OF CALEB GUSHING 147 

parison with the English among the Chinese, and not at 
all eager to have conditions disturbed by the introduction 
of diplomatic questions which, even if settled entirely to 
the liking of the Americans, could not make business any 
better. 

Nor was the American Mission welcomed by the Chinese \ 
Government. The preceding October, in obedience to in- ; 
structions from Washington, Paul S. Forbes, the newly ! f\ 
appointed consul at Canton, had both formally and in- 
formally conveyed to Kiying, the Imperial Commissioner 
and Governor General of Kwang-tung and Kwangsi, that 
the American Mission was on its way, only to be met with 
the reply: "Why go to Peking when the Imperial Com- 
missioner is already at Canton, and when the Americans 
have already been given all the advantages in trade which 
have been conceded to the English?" In the formal reply 
to the official notification from Forbes, Kiying had stated : ^ 

"The August Emperor, compassionating people froiu afar, cer- 
tainly cannot bear that the American Minister by a circuitous route 
should go to Peking, wading through over-flowing difficulties. The 
Consul ought, therefore, to intercept and stop the American Pleni- 
potentiary from repairing, in every respect unnecessary, to the Im- 
perial Court." 

This unwillingness and even fear on the part of the 
Chinese for a foreign envoy to proceed to Peking was to 
become the lever in the hands of Cushing, for the negotiat- 
ing of the treaty. However, the concession of this point at 
the outset, would have embarrassed all further negotiations. 
Even before the arrival of the Brandywine at Macao a 
general order to the members of the mission and the officers 
and crew of the frigate had been issued, cautioning every- 
one to be most discreet in answer to any questions, and 
always to assert that the destination of the mission was 
Peking. 

Three days after the arrival at Macao (February 27), 
Cushing addressed a formal letter to the acting Governor 
General at Canton, Kiying having found it convenient to 
retire to Peking, casually mentioning the fact that the 



148 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

American Plenipotentiary "finds, himself under the neces- 
sity of landing at Macao and remaining there a few weeks, 
until the Brandywine shall have taken on provisions and 
made other preparations to enable her to continue her 
voyage to the mouth of the Pei-ho." Gushing, therefore, 
availed himself of the first opportunity, in pursuance of 
orders from his government, to inquire solicitously after the 
health of the Emperor, and he addressed his inquiry to the 
Governor because, as Gushing was careful to state, he was 
'the nearest high functionary of the Ghinese Government.' 
The plenipotentiary intimated that an immediate answer 
to his inquiry would be most acceptable. 

Then followed a parley ^ which, save for the fact that it 
is raised to diplomatic dignity, was otherwise not at all 
dissimilar to a thousand daily passages in any bazaar in 
Asia for forty centuries. This correspondence with the 
acting Governor, explained Gushing, in a later dispatch to 
the State Department, "not only proves to have had the 
advantage of having settled many things, and thus prepared 
the way for the negotiations with Kiying, but it has had 
the further advantage of enabling me to say all the harsh 
things which needed to be said, and to speak to the Ghinese 
Government with extreme plainness and frankness, in a 
degree which would have been inconvenient, if not inad- 
missible, in immediate correspondence with Kiying." 

Governor Ghing allowed Gushing's letter to go un- 
answered for three weeks, and then replied that it "evinces 
respectful obedience, and politeness exceedingly to be 
praised. The Emperor is well and enjoying a happy old 
age," wrote Ghing and added pointedly, "and is at peace 
with all, both far and near." This touch was evidently to 
show the American envoy that the government had not 
overlooked the fact that the American Mission arrived in 
a frigate. The Governor then took occasion to explain 
to Gushing a few points in Ghinese diplomatic etiquette 
and law. It was not customary for envoys to proceed to 
Tientsin unless they were invited. There were no linguists 
there, and no commissioners empowered to receive them. 



THE POLICY OF CALEB CUSHING 149 

Even Sir Henry Pottinger, the English plenipotentiary, 
after he had signed the Treaty of Nanking, had been forced 
to return to Canton to negotiate the commercial agreement 
such as, the Governor assumed, the Americans were alone 
interested in. The Governor further reminded Gushing 
that nearly six months ago the American consul at Canton 
had been informed that it would be useless for the Ameri- 
can envoy to go to Tientsin. And as for a treaty, the 
Governor reasserted that such an agreement was quite 
unnecessary. The nations were at peace, the tariff had been 
settled, and ''already has your nation been bedewed with 
its advantages." The Emperor had issued orders to soothe 
and stop the Americans at Macao. "It is useless with 
lofty, polished and empty words to alter these unlimited ad- 
vantages." Nevertheless, if Gushing insisted, the Governor 
would again memorialize the Emperor on the subject. 
Meanwhile, for the Americans to proceed to the North 
without Imperial permission would "put an end to civility." 

Gushing promptly acknowledged the Governor's letter, 
and regretted the impasse to which they seemed already to 
have come. As for himself, he was under orders to proceed 
to Peking. He was sorry that the Imperial Government 
had neglected to have a commissioner waiting in the South 
to receive him for it was quite possible that commercial, as 
distinguished from political and diplomatic questions, might 
be settled there as well as anywhere. But the most serious 
obstacle, in Cushing's opinion, was the fact that he was, 
obviously, quite unable to discuss these two questions of 
the right to proceed to the Pei-ho and the necessity of a 
treaty with any one save the Imperial Commissioner him- 
self. 

Ching replied, rather more promptly than before, that 
he would memorialize the Emperor, and as for himself, he 
could not take upon his shoulders "to commence move- 
ments which may eventuate in the loss of the invaluable 
blessings of peace." 

Thus, in the first engagement, the American envoy had 
won a point; the Emperor was to be memorialized. 



m AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

The correspondence, notwithstanding these obvious and 
acknowledged disabilities of the correspondents, continued. 
Ching notified Gushing (April 12) that no commissioner 
had yet been appointed, and that the Americans would be 
notified when the appointment was made. Gushing replied 
the next day by sending the Brandywine up to Whampoa, 
only twelve miles from Ganton, "on a visit, for a few days, 
of courtesy and civility." The commander of the frigate 
carried the matter a little further by proposing a suitable 
exchange of salutes, and by inviting himself to visit the 
Governor at his yamen in the city of Ganton. Ghing, evi- 
dently alarmed, and yet with the customary show of 
Ghinese ofiicial bravado, ordered the Brandywine to return 
to Macao, and remarked rather tartly, that the visit of such 
a formidably armed vessel was a strange exhibition of cour- 
tesy, and had a very war-like bearing. 

Meanwhile Gushing continued the unofiicial correspond- 
ence. He reviewed the situation and ventured to give the 
Governor a little instruction in the rules of international 
courtesy. A refusal to receive envoys is, among Western 
1 nations, considered as "an act of national insult and a just 
t cause for war." The analogy between the course pursued 
with Sir Henry Pottinger and the one the Ghinese were 
seeking to adopt with him, would hardly be complete until 
I the Americans had fought a war with Ghina, and had oc- 
] cupied one of the islands of! the Ghinese coast. He re- 
^ minded the Governor that the season was already passing, 
that he had already waited a long time, that no Imperial 
Gommissioner had even been appointed, and that he did 
not intend to be held at Ganton until the favorable season 
for sailing to the North had passed with the changing of 
the monsoon. This drew an immediate reply from Ghing 
that Kiying had been appointed as Imperial Gommissioner 
and would arrive at Ganton in due time. 

The second engagement of mighty words, supported by 
he movements of the Brandywine, had resulted in another 
victory for the Americans. 

Gushing pursued the advantage. He chose to feel that 



4 



THE POLICY OF CALEB CUSHING 151 

he had been grossly insulted, and that the national honor 
of the Americans had been affected. However, Gushing 
"suspends all resentment" for the time being, and hoped 
that ''suitable reparation will be made in due time." "I 
commit myself," he wrote solemnly, "to the integrity and 
honor of the Chinese Government; and if, in the sequel, 
I shall prove to have done this in vain, I shall then consider 
myself the more amply justified, in the sight of all men, 
for any determination which, out of regard for the honor 
of the United States, it may be my duty to adopt under 
such circumstances." The next day he notified the Gov- 
ernor that the St. Louis and Perry which had unfortunately 
been detained at the Cape of Good Hope, would soon arrive, 
and that the American Government had decided to enlarge 
the fleet in Chinese waters by the addition of the Pacific 
Squadron which was also soon to arrive. 

The addition of the Pacific Squadron to Cushing's fleet 
had been suggested to the President before Cushing's de- 
parture from the United States, and Gushing had again 
proposed it in a dispatch to the State Department before 
his arrival in China. Other dispatches show that Gushing 
had been greatly annoyed that during these early negotia- 
tions there had not been a larger naval force at his com- 
mand. It is not impossible that had the fleet been adequate 
and suitably provided with vessels of light draught, such 
as are necessary for the approach to Tientsin, he might 
already have sailed to the North. If so, it was a happy 
mischance that detained him at Macao. 

Ching stated (May 4) that Kiying had already left 
Peking, was travelling with incredible speed, and might be 
expected at Canton on the fifth of June. 

The interval before the arrival of Kiying was devoted 
to still further threats, mingled with courteous correspond- 
ence. The Imperial edict making known the appointment 
of Kiying mentioned the fact that the United States had 
never gone through the form of paying tribute to the Em- 
peror, and made clear that Gushing had the choice between 
remaining at Macao and securing the desired treaty, or 



152 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

going to Tientsin and failing to get it. The appointment 
of Kiying was taken by the Americans as a favorable sign 
for Kiying had negotiated the English treaties, had been 
much in contact with the foreigners, and was greatly re- 
spected for his breadth of view, as well as for his urbanity. 
Therefore Gushing agreed to defer the discussion of the pro- 
posed trip to the North, and although still complaining of 
the inconveniences to which he had been subjected, settled 
down to wait for Kiying. The latter wrote to him (June 9) : 
"In a few days we shall take each other by the hand, and 
converse, and rejoice together with indescribable delight." 
The American commissioner appeared to have won in the 
first skirmish of wits. 

A not unimportant factor in the successful conclusion 
of these first stages in the negotiations had been the fact, 
made clear unofficially in the beginning by Dr. Peter Parker, 
in whom the Chinese had great confidence, and later by 
Gushing in the correspondence, that the American Govern- 
ment had no desire to dismember Ghina or to possess any 
part of her territory. 

The actual negotiations of the treaty with China were 
simple. Kiying was eager to conclude them before the 
arrival of the French plenipotentiary, whose approach had 
been announced, and the Americans had already prepared 
a draft of the document which they desired to have signed. 
Kiying arrived at the temple of the Lady of Mercy, just 
outside Macao, on June 17. The next few days were given 
to the customary visits of ceremony. Then the commis- 
sioners delegated to their subordinates the task of conferring 
together, and on July 3, the treaty was signed. 

In submitting his project of the proposed treaty, Gush- 
ing had written to Kiying: 

"In drawing up these minutes, I have not looked to the side of the 
United States alone. I felt that it would not be honorable, in dealing 
with your Excellency, to take a partial view of the subject. I have 
inserted a multitude of provisions in the interest and for the benefit 
of China. In a word I have sought to present this draft of a treaty 
which, as already intimated, shall be in all parts alike just and honor- 
able to China and the United States." 



THE POLICY OF CALEB GUSHING 153 

The Immediate Application of the Principles 
OF THE Treaty 

An incident at Canton before the arrival of Kiying had 
threatened to embarrass the negotiations, and the ready- 
willingness of the Americans to respect the prejudices of the 
Chinese had doubtless left a favorable impression. The 
mission had been supplied as a part of its equipment with 
a flag-staff which was intended for erection over the Lega- 
tion, but when Cushing established himself at Macao it was 
impracticable to set it up, owing to the objection of the 
Portuguese authorities. The flag-staff was therefore turned 
over to the American consul at Canton, and placed in front 
of the consulate. The staff was surmounted with an arrow 
for a weather-vane which caused great alarm to the people 
of the city. To its mysterious influence was ascribed the 
serious drought then prevailing in Canton, and some also 
found in the arrow a symbol of approaching war between 
the United States and China. At length a Chinese mob 
broke into the factory grounds, cut the halyards, damaged 
the staff and sought to remove the arrow. The Americans 
defended the staff and repulsed the mob with fire-arms. 
The next day a second mob collected. Of such incidents are 
wars sometimes born, but in this case the American consul 
agreed to remove the arrow.'^ 

The episode was sufficient to illustrate the insecurity 
of the foreigners at Canton, however many treaties they 
might negotiate. Shortly after the removal of the obnoxious 
weather-vane a mob attacked some Americans who, in 
defending themselves, accidentally killed a Chinese — Hsii 
A-man. Governor Ching, who had himself been negligent 
in providing protection from the mob, demanded that the 
Americans surrender the murderer. The matter was re- 
ferred to Cushing and Kiying. The former refused to de- 
liver the man, ordered the calling of a jury of Americans, 
and the trial of the case according to American law. The 
jury rendered a verdict of acquittal on the ground of self- 
defense, Kiying accepted the settlement, Subsequently, 



154 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

though not as a part of the judicial action in the case, the 
family of Hsii A-man received some money from the Amer- 
icans.^ This incident again illustrated the danger to which 
the foreigners in Canton were exposed, and was the means 
of securing from the authorities the promise of better pro- 
vision for the protection of the factories — a promise which 
was never fulfilled. 

The Canton rabble, incited by minor officials and the 
literati, were in an angry mood which boded ill for the 
future. Kiying confessed his great difficulty in controlling 
the people of the city and explained to Cushing that the 
English had created a great deal of ill-will. "I have heard," 
he wrote, ''that usually the citizens of Canton have respected 
and liked the officers and people of the United States, as 
they were peaceable and reasonable; that they (the Ameri- 
cans) would, even when there was a cause of difference, 
endeavor to accommodate the matter, which is very unlike 
the English." 

Cushing seized upon the Hsii A-man affair to establish a 
precedent in the matter of jurisdiction over Americans 
accused by Chinese, and to demonstrate the principle of 
extraterritoriality, as it was incorporated in the new treaty. 
He also used it as an argument to have placed in the 
treaty very clear stipulations that the Chinese Govern- 
ment must assume the responsibility for the protection of 
Americans. 

Before the American commissioner returned to the 
United States an occasion arose in which Kiying called upon 
the Americans for a demonstration of good faith, and re- 
ceived it. Before the treaty had been made two American 
ship-builders, Emery and Erazer, had leased some land op- 
posite Hongkong, on the north side of the harbor, for a 
ship-yard. Kiying called Cushing's attention to the fact 
that the treaty did not provide for the leasing of land by 
foreigners at this place and asked for his good offices in 
securing the removal of the ship-yard. It was evident that 
the Chinese feared that this lease-hold might some day 
become the base for another foreign settlement. Cushing 



THE POLICY OF CALEB CUSHING 155 

therefore, advised the Americans to relinquish their loca- 
tion, securing for them six months in which to find another 
one. To this Emery and Grazer agreed. 

The primary object of the Mission had been accom- 
plished in the signing of the treaty. The fulfillment of the 
secondary purpose, the visit to Peking and the delivery of 
the President's letter to the Emperor, greatly troubled 
Gushing. Shortly after the arrival of Kiying at Macao in 
June, Gushing had formally waived the right to go to 
Peking, provided the treaty was signed, but had made a 
reservation, viz., that if in the future any other envoy was 
received at Peking, the Americans should have a similar 
privilege. At the time he made this concession to the 
Ghinese he supposed that he was on very safe ground for 
he knew that the French plenipotentiary was approaching, 
and he assumed that as a matter of course, France would 
demand the reception of its envoy at the Gourt. After 
the treaty was signed, but before the arrival of the French 
Mission, Gushing secured from Kiying a promise to deliver 
the President's letter to the Emperor, and later transferred 
it to the Ghinese commissioner with suitable ceremony. 

Greatly to Gushing's surprise the French, upon their 
arrival, communicated to him that they had no instruc- 
tions to insist upon a visit to Peking except in extraordinary 
circumstances. Gushing, on the other hand, felt that his 
instructions to proceed to Peking were "peremptory." True 
the treaty had been obtained, but there seems to have been 
the fear in Gushing's mind that the failure to carry out the 
remainder of his instructions might be counted to his dis- 
credit upon his return to the United States, and he there- 
fore made his explanations for not going to the Gapital the 
subject of several passages in his dispatches. His principal 
argument was that a visit to Peking would have delayed, 
if not imperilled, the negotiations for the treaty, and now 
that the treaty had been signed, he considered that the best 
interests of the mission would be served by his immediate 
return to the United States where he could supplement by 
personal explanation, anything which might be lacking in 



156 AMERICANS IK EASTERN ASIA 

his dispatches to secure the immediate ratification of the 
treaty. Incidentally the appropriation which had been 
made for the expenses of the mission was entirely ex- 
hausted. He therefore appointed Commander Foxhall A. 
Parker as Charge, with power to attend to any diplomatic 
questions which might arise, while Dr. Peter Parker, the 
medical missionary, assumed the responsibility of acting as 
official interpreter without salary. Cushing embarked on 
the Perry August 24, 1844. 

One other object of the mission, an object mentioned in 
no instructions, remained unaccomplished. Shortly after 
the signing of the treaty Cushing offered to Kiying some 
models of guns and some books on military and naval 
tactics, and fortifications, delicately expressing the opinion 
that such information might be of value to China in the 
future. The Chinese, however, were not ready, even after 
their humiliating military defeats, to concern themselves 
with the trappings of modern militarism, and Kiying replied 
politely declining the gifts, expressing the conviction that 
peace for China was assured, and adding: "If at a future 
day there be occasion to use them, then we ought to request 
your Honorable Nation to assist us with the strength of 
its arm." 

Throughout the entire negotiations the relations be- 
tween Cushing and Kiying bore all the outward marks of 
extreme cordiality and good feeling. The latter in his fare- 
well letter to the American envoy wrote : 

"I present my compliments and wishes that wherever you go 
happiness may attend you, and that day by day you may advance in 
promotion." 

Imagine then the amazement of Cushing and of the 
other Americans as well, when a few months later a copy 
of Kiying's memorial report to the Emperor fell into the 
hands of the foreigners and, when translated, was found to 
contain the following: 

"The original copy of the Treaty presented by the said Barbarian 
Envoy, contained forty-seven stipulations. Of these some were diffi- 



THE POLICY OF CALEB CUSHING 157 

cult of execution, others were foolish demands, whilst several of the 
most important points of the Treaty were omitted on the list. The 
sense of it was, moreover, so meanly and coarsely expressed, the words 
and sentences were so obscure, and there was such a variety of errors, 
that it was next to impossible to point them out. 

"We clearly pointed out whatever was comprehensive to reason, in 
order to dispel their stupid ignorance, and to put a stop to (delusive) 
hopes, whilst expatiating with strictness upon the most binding of the 
statutes, while we were obliged to polish those passages which were 
scarcely intelligible, so as to render the sense somewhat more obvious, 
in order to remove all ambiguity ; and only after four times altering 
the copies, we adopted (the paper)." 

Kiying also pointed out to the Emperor that in the 
article in the treaty which purported to grant to the Ameri- 
cans the privileges of renting property in the five ports he 
had inserted a qualifying clause which made the renting of 
such property dependent upon the willingness of the neigh- 
bors to receive foreigners. 

This report gives a fair intimation of what was to come 
in the next fifteen years when Chinese officials, sometimes 
friendly to foreigners and sometimes not, but always intent 
on retaining the favor of an ill-informed and anti-foreign 
Emperor, attempted to transact the international affairs 
of the Chinese Empire. As for the concession in the article 
of the treaty securing the rights of renting property, it soon 
became evident that Cushing, in his excess of amiability, had 
permitted himself to be completely hoodwinked by the wily 
Kiying. 

The only known contemporaneous Chinese account of 
the negotiation of the Treaty of Wanghia is the following: ^ 

"The English desired that leaders of all nations should report to 
them first, and then pay duties ; but the French and Americans indig- 
nantly exclaimed: — 'We are no dependencies of England nor have we 
been "treacherous and lying." ' On this, some American ship-of-war 
entered port, and a few mont- later, some Frenchmen too. Both 
of them submitted letters, begging to pay tribute, and to be allowed 
to express their devotion at an interview. They also requested to be 
allowed to leave their ships in the South, whilst the tribute-envoys 
and a small suite went overland to Peking; for they wished to make 
some confidential suggestions and to assist us." 



158 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

" (^ Superior Advantages of the Gushing Treaty 

In conducting the negotiations with the Chinese for the 
first American treaty, Cushing had the double advantage of 
the experience of the English and the good will of the 
Chinese. Sir Henry Pottinger had been the pioneer. His 
efforts had been incorporated in the Treaty of Nanking, the 
Treaty of the Bogue, and the Regulations for Trade which, 
while first promulgated by the Chinese alone, were signed 
by both the Chinese and the English commissioners, and in- 
corporated as a part of the treaty agreement between the 
two nations. Before Cushing began the negotiations lead- 
ing up to the American Treaty of Wanghia the arrangements 
of the English with the Chinese had been subjected to a 
working test in which their weakness as well as their 
strength had been revealed. Of even greater advantage to 
the American negotiations was the fact that th,e Chinese, 
while bitterly resenting the defeats they had suffered at the 
hands of the English, had already*>come to see the advantage 
of having the good will of other Western nations. While 
not fully understanding the benefits which would, come to 
them later from having admitted into their international 
relationship a strong nation whose national interests in 
China coincided at many points with Chinese national 
well-being, nevertheless the Chinese were not altogether un- 
conscious of the probable effects. This is evident from the 
fact that even before signing the Treaty -of- Nanking in '1842 
they had deternlined to throw open th^ trade on equal terms 
to all nations. 

The Chinese, notwithstanding their show of bravado at 
the approach of Cushing at Macao, had ^een cowed by 
their defeat. The American commissioner,_had no English 
war preceded his efforts, might have perfected ^arrangements 
in which the position of the Americans in China would have 
been slightly bettered. Certainly the Americans in Canton 
in the summer of 1839, after Commissioner Lin had begun 
direct communications with the American consul, thought, 
so. Possibly had the United States joined in a naval dem- 



THE POLICY OF CALEB CUSHING 159 

onstration on the coast of China with England and France, 
as the memorial of the Canton merchants (May 25, 1839) 
to Congress had advised, some sort of diplomatic relations 
between China and the Western powers might have be^ 
established.* But that such sweeping concessions as the 
English had obtained, aside from the indemnity and the 
cession of Hongkong, could have been secured otherwise 
than as a result of military victory over the Chinese, is not 
to be thought of. These concessions, obtained for the Eng- 
lish by force of arms, became freely the possession of the 
Americans. On the other hand, had the Americans chosen 
to regard the attack on the American flag-staff at Canton in 
June, 1844, as a cause for war, they could have doubtless, on 
the conclusion of war, exacted any terms they liked from 
the Chinese Government. It became ingloriously, yet very 
profitably, the role of the United States pacifically to follow 
England to China in the wake of war, and to profit greatly 
by the victories of British arms. 

There had been, however, no alternative for the United 
States, save that of continuing the American trade in China 
without a treaty, and that would have meant trade under 
the aegis of England. So far as China was concerned, while 
Caleb Cushing won several additional concessions from 
China, and won them by a method hardly to be distinguished 
from intimidation, nevertheless the treaty with the United 
States was an anchor to windward for the Empire. In so far 
as the Chinese Government was conscious of what was being 
achieved, the signing of the Treaty of Wanghia may be 
described as a brilliant stroke of diplomacy. The subse- 
quent history of China's international relations, with the 
United States eliminated, would have been quite different 
from what it actually was. 

It ought to be added, as a preface to the comparison of 
the British and American treaties, that the United States 
had an advantage over the English in the ability of its 

*The Memorial of R. B. Forbes and others, H. Doc. 40 :26-l, had expressed 
in conclusion, the "candid conviction that the appearance of a naval force from 
the United States, England and Prance upon the coast of China, would, without 
bloodshed, obtain from this Government such acknowledgments and treaties, etc." 



160 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

commissioner. As a negotiator and a writer of legal docu- 
ments Sir Henry Pottinger was no match for the clever 
New England lawyer. In estimating the Treaty of Wanghia 
an effort ought to be made to put one's self in the place of 
the Chinese and seek to determine the extent in which the 
document was fair and just to the Empire. Such an esti- 
mate, however, must not detract from the credit due to the 
negotiator in whose hands were placed the commercial and 
political interests of the United States. Caleb Cushing was 
charged with making the best possible terms for his client. 
That is to say, he was to make a treaty which would give 
to American commercial interests in China the best possible 
opportunities for the prosecution of their growing trade in 
the face of British competition. No one can deny, after a 
comparison of the documents, that in the Treaty of Wanghia 
those interests were extremely well served. 

The Superior Advantages of the Cushing Treaty 

As a basis for the conduct of trade the American treaty 
was greatly superior to the English agreements, made by 
Sir Henry Pottinger ; so superior that it became immediately 
the model for the French treaty, negotiated a few weeks 
later, and also for the treaty with Norway and Sweden, 
signed March 29, 1847. The superior provisions of the 
American treaty also immediately won the approval of the 
English and were largely used by them. Indeed the Cushing 
treaty became the basis of China's international relations 
until it was superseded in 1858 by the treaties of Tientsin. 

From the English treaties the Americans already enjoyed 
the following concessions: (1) The opening of four addi- 
tional ports, and the rights of residence in these ports for the 
transaction of business. (2) The right of equality in con- 
sular and diplomatic intercourse. (3) A lowering of the 
tonnage dues to less than one tenth of what had formerly 
been paid, and a reduction of duties, confirmed by a pub- 
lished tariff, of from one half to seven eighths of the former 
charges. (4) The abolition of all monopolies, such as the 



THE POLICY OF CALEB CUSHING 161 

co-hong. (5) Sweeping concessions of extraterritorial 
rights. On the other hand, by means of the "most-favored- 
nation" clause in the Treaty of the Bogue (Article 8) the 
EngHsh inherited many additional advantages secured from 
the Treaty of Wanghia. Sir John Francis Davis, who suc- 
ceeded Sir Henry Pottinger, as British Minister and Super- 
intendent of Trade, acknowledged the following: '^ (1) 
Merchant ships might remain two days at any one of the 
five ports without paying duties, provided they did not dis- 
charge any cargo. (2) Having paid tonnage . duties ships 
could go to another port without having to pay such duties 
a second time. (3) Having landed cargo and having paid 
the duties, they could reship it to another port and enter 
it without duty by means of a customs house certificate. 

(4) Permission was obtained for the employment of Chinese 
as teachers for the foreigners and for the purchase of books. 

(5) It was stipulated that the treaty might be reconsidered 
for purposes of revision after twelve years from the date of 
the American treaty. 

The first three of the above items obviously made for 
greater flexibility in the division of the foreign trade be- 
tween the newly opened ports, especially in the early years 
when the trade possibilities of each port were being ex- 
plored. They also opened the door part way for a coasting 
trade between the treaty ports in foreign vessels. The Eng- 
lish had expected that Hongkong would serve at once as a 
bonded warehouse for their entire China trade, and also as 
a distributing point. These provisions were ingenious de- 
vices of Cushing's by which the Americans could secure 
advantages such as the British had expected to obtain by 
the cession of territory. 

The permission to employ Chinese teachers and purchase 
Chinese books, while of general advantage to the merchants 
and to the foreign governments in that it made possible the 
development of a competent staff of interpreters and ad- 
visers, was also of peculiar advantage to the missionaries 
who hitherto had been able to study the Chinese language 
and literature only surreptitiously. 



162 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

The American article providing for the revision of the 
treaty after twelve years, which was also incorporated into 
the French treaty a few weeks later, and on which the 
Powers rested their claims for the negotiation of new treaties 
in 1856, will be discussed subsequently more in detail. 

Extraterritoriality 

The doctrine of extraterritoriality received amplification 
and greater precision of statement in the Treaty of Wanghia. 
Owing to Chinese reluctance to grant it, or to objections in 
England to the doctrine, Pottinger had not included it in 
either the Treaty of Nanking, or that of the Bogue. The 
only mention of the concession was in the Regulations of 
Trade, Article 13 of which read : 

"Regarding the punishment of English criminals, the English 
Government will enact the laws necessary to attain that end and 
the Consul will be empowered to put them into force: and regarding 
the punishment of Chinese criminals, these will be tried and punished 
by their own laws, in the way provided for by the correspondence 
which took place at Nanking after the concluding of the peace." 

From the phrasing of this article it is clear, even though 
there were no other proof, that the doctrine in substance, 
even though not included in the treaty, had been one of the 
concessions obtained by Sir Henry Pottinger as a fruit of the 
English victory.^ 

The correspondence referred to was never made public* 
The rights of extraterritoriality in the American treaty 
were defined in two articles. 

"Article XXI. Subjects of China who may be guilty of any 
criminal act towards the citizens of the United States shall be arrested 
and punished by the Chinese authorities according to the laws of 
China; and citizens of the United States who may commit any crirne 

*In the final instructions issued by Lord Palmerston to Charles Elliot," the 
concession of extraterritoriality was outlined in Art. VII of the substitute 
articles which were to be inserted in the proposed treaty with China in case the 
British representatives were unable to secure the cession to Great Britain of 
any islands. From the facts of the final settlement it may therefore be inferred 
that in 1842 the Chinese Government preferred to cede Hongkong rather than 
to grant extraterritoriality. It would also appear as though Lord Palmerston 
regarded the possession of a military and administrative base on the coast of 
China as, at least in part, a substitute for the concession of extraterritorial 
privileges. 



THE POLICY OF CALEB CUSHING 163 

in China shall be tried and punished only by the Consul, or other 
public functionary of the United States, thereto authorized, according 
to the laws of the United States . . ." 

And 

"Article XXV. All questions in regard to rights, whether of 
property or person, arising between citizens of the United States 
and China, shall be subject to the jurisdiction of, and regulated by 
the authorities of their own Government." 

And this article also adds: 

"And all controversies occurring in China between the citizens of 
the United States and the subjects of any other Government shall be 
regulated by the treaties existing between the United States and 
such Governments, respectively, without interference on the part of 
China." 

A provision which had not been legalized before. 

It is interesting to note that the extraterritorial pro- 
visions of the Treaty of Wanghia were not inserted at the 
demand of the American merchants. The Forbes memorial 
(May 25, 1839) which had outlined what seemed to the 
American merchants important in a possible treaty, asked 
for something very much less than Gushing secured. The 
sixth article of the memorial read: 

"That until the Chinese laws are distinctly made known and 
recognized, the punishment for wrongs committed by foreigners upon 
the Chinese, or others, shall not be greater than is applicable to the 
like offense by the laws of the United States or England; nor shall 
any punishment be inflicted by the Chinese authorities upon any 
foreigner, until the guilt of the party shall have been fairly and 
clearly proven." 

Gushing made the general subject and the precise stipu- 
lation of extraterritoriality in the Treaty of Wanghia the 
matter of a long and detailed dispatch to the Secretary of 
State, John G. Galhoun,^*' in which the reasons for the con- 
cession are explained in detail. The most immediate reason [ 
was that such a concession had already been made to the 
English . Gushing wrote : 

"I found that Great Britain had stipulated for the absolute exemp- 
tion of her subjects from the jurisdiction of the Empire, while the 



H O 



"^, 



i 



164 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

Portuguese attained the same object through their own local juris- 
diction at Macao. And in addition to all the other considerations 
affecting the question, I reflected how ignominious would be the con- 
dition of Americans in China, if subjected to local jurisdiction, 
whilst the English and Portuguese among them were exempt from it." 

Starting with this fact, or possibly seeking to underlay 
the concession already obtained with substantial legal and 
ethical principles, Gushing found them in the character of 
the relations which China had sustained towards Western 
nations, and in the more conspicuous incidents of the past, 
particularly the Terranova case, where such a provision as 
he inserted into the Treaty of Wanghia would have served 
better the ends of justice. 

While China could not be classified with the Moham- 
medan States where the doctrine of extraterritoriality had 
long been applied, on the ground that China, like them, was 
uncivilized, the Empire could be placed with them as a 
State which did not recognize the 'law of nations.' This 
was proved, wrote Cushing, by the following facts: The 
Chinese attempt to apply Chinese law to visiting foreign 
war vessels ; their authorities have subjected foreign consuls 
to personal restraint; they disregard the flag of truce; and 
they demand, at Court, the kowtow. The states of Christ- 
endom, said Cushing, as distinguished from the Mohamme- 
dan and pagan states, have many of the qualities of a 
confederated republic. 

"How different is the condition of things out of the limits of 
Christendom! From the greater part of Asia and Africa individual 
Christians are utterly excluded, either by the sanguinary barbarism of 
the inhabitants, or by their phrenzied bigotry, or by the narrow- 
minded policy of their governments; to their courts the ministers of 
Christian governments have no means of access except by force and at 
the head of fleets and armies; as between them and us, there is no 
community of ideas, no common law of nations, no interchange of 
good offices ; and it is only during the present generation that treaties, 
most of them imposed by force of arms or by terror, have begun to 
bring down the great Mohammedan and Pagan Governments into a 
state of inchoate peaceful association with Christendom. 

"To none of the governments of this character, as it seemed to me, 
was it safe to commit the lives and liberties of the citizens of the 
United States." 



THE POLICY OF CALEB CUSHING 165 

This argument derived its most impelling force from 
the Terranova case * in 1821, which had been such a trav- 
esty on justice. 

It would appear, however, that the significance of this 
carefully drawn provision of the Gushing treaty is to be 
found in Cushing's purpose in this matter, as in reexporta- 
tion and the coasting trade, to secure for the Americans 
guarantees of actual most-favored-nation treatment without 
the acquisition of a military and naval base like Hongkong. 
Extraterritoriality was in a measure, as Lord Palmerston 
seems to have recognized in 1839, a substitute for the perma- 
nent occupation of territory. 

The profound and brilliant legal mind of the American 
commissioner found in this complex legal question of per- 
sonal versus territorial jurisdiction a subject entirely to his 
taste, and the result, as defined in the two articles of the 
Treaty of Wanghia, was to Gushing a matter of no little 
pride. 

Responsibility Placed on the Ghinese 

Another superiority of the American treaty which was 
subsequently acknowledged and adopted by the English, 
was in the locating of responsibility for the collection of 
duties. Here again Gushing was applying his general policy. 
The second article of the Treaty of Nanking stipulated as a 
duty of the Gonsul "to see that the just dues and other dues 
of the Ghinese Government, as hereinafter provided for, are 
duly discharged by Her Britannic Majesty's subjects." In 
the Treaty of the Bogue England assumed additional 
responsibilities to assist the Ghinese Government in the 
suppression of smuggling. This provision was an inherit- 
ance from the days before the treaties, and even from 
before the dissolution of the East India Gompany monopoly 

* V. K. Wellington Koo, in his exposition of the Status of Aliens in China, 
although examining all of the other cases of the alleged homicide by foreigners 
which he finds entirely unjustifiable as a basis for the doctrine of extraterri- 
toriality, unfortunately omits all discussion of the Terranova case, perhaps the 
worst exhibition of the exercise of Chinese jurisdiction over foreigners, and 
certainly the most compelling argument among Americans for the provision in 
the Treaty of Wanghia. 



166 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

at Canton, when the Chinese authorities were accustomed 
to hold the English superintendent responsible for the con- 
duct of his countrymen. To the Chinese, accustomed as 
they were to having all merchants secured by a guarantor, 
the British provisions were a satisfactory arrangement. 
They might also be considered as a correlative proposition 
to the doctrine of extraterritoriality, since it was over the 
payment of dues and duties that the offenses of foreigners 
were most likely to arise. But in practice it made the 
foreign government responsible for the enforcement of the 
Chinese customs laws, and it became therefore very dis- 
tasteful. 

"Under the Treaty of Nanking," writes a British historian, "the 
British consuls were to assist the Chinese in the enforcement of the 
regulations; the only result of this was to penalize British subjects 
who were fined by their own consuls for offenses which other foreigners 
committed with impunity." " 

That the English were not unwilling to adopt the pro- 
visions of the American treaty with reference to smuggling 
must be evident from the following letter from Sir Henry 
Pottinger to Kiying, October 11, 1843, in answer to a com- 
plaint from the latter that men from an English vessel had 
landed on the Chinese coast outside any treaty port and 
distributed hand bills announcing that they had 'woolens, 
miscellaneous articles, opium in large and small balls, etc./ 
for sale.^- 

"I have more than ten times previously explained to your Excel- 
lency and the other high Chinese officers, that the great and final 
remedy for this disobedience and evil rests in the hands of the local 
authorities; and I am most happy to observe that the remedy was 
applied on this occasion. I allude to the people of the country being 
carefully restrained from dealing or holding intercourse with the 
vessels. If this rule be only rigidly enforced, the object is gained." 

It is to be noted that this letter was written more than 
six months before the negotiations of the Treaty of 
Wanghia began, and the principle here laid down by the 
British Minister is the' one incorporated in the American 
treaty, viz., Chinese authorities must do their own policing. 



THE POLICY OF CALEB CUSHING 167 

,The Treaty of Wanghia completely freed the consul from 
responsibility in this matter, by stipulating (Article 13) that 
the duties should be paid in cash, either in sycee silver, or 
in foreign currency. Perhaps in the long run it was better 
that China should not delegate, or be allowed to delegate, 
the responsibility which properly belonged to the Empire as 
a sovereign state, for the enforcement of its own laws, but 
the immediate effect of the provision was merely that the 
Government of the United States evaded responsibility for 
the smuggling carried on by its citizens. The Gushing treaty 
was, in practice, the smugglers' delight, conferring even 
more extended privileges in that regard than did the pos- 
session of Hongkong. 

The American treaty definitely specified that communi- 
cations to Peking might be made not only through the 
medium of the Imperial Commissioner at Canton (Article 
31) but also, when necessary, through the Governor General 
of the Liang Kwang, or that of the Liang Kiang. This 
provision also was made use of by the English officials, ten 
years later, when the Imperial Commissioner obstinately 
refused to see them. 

Divergence from British Policy 

A comparison of the American and the British treaties 
also shows a. marked divergence of the policies between the 
two Western powers towards China. 

Both in the text of the Treaty of Wanghia and in the 
annexed tariff, opium is specifically mentioned as contra- 
band, and any opium smuggler is made liable to arrest and 
to the penalty of confiscation for both cargo and the vessel 
detected in carrying it. The text was (Article 33) : 

"Citizens of the TJnited States who shall attempt to trade clandes- 
tinely with such of the ports of China as are not open to foreign 
commerce, or who shall trade in opium or any other contraband 
articles of merchandise, shall be subject to be dealt with by the 
Chinese Government without being entitled to any countenance or 
protection from that of the United States; and the United States 
will take measures to prevent their flag from being abused by the 



168 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

subjects of other nations as a cover for the violation of the laws of 
the Empire." 

Thus, until the treaty of 1858, when this article was 
omitted, the name of the United States was technically clear 
of any complicity in the opium trade, although slight pro- 
vision was ever made by the United States to prevent the 
abuse of the American flag either by its own citizens or those 
of other nations. American citizens engaged in smuggling 
violated the treaty, yet the United States never assumed 
any responsibility to prevent or punish such violations un- 
less complaint was brought by the Chinese, and such action 
the Chinese were very reluctant to take. The result was 
that smuggling greatly increased. The only difference be- 
tween the policy of the United States and that of England, 
in practice, was in the extent of the participation in the 
smuggling. 

A more marked divergence of policy is to be found in 
the stipulations conferring on foreigners the rights of resi- 
dence in treaty ports, and in the measures adopted for their 
protection. The Treaty of the Bogue (Article 7) provided 
that in the treaty ports "ground and houses . . . shall be 
set apart by the local officers, in communication with the 
consul" for the residence of foreigners. For their protec- 
tion the English depended upon the naval station and gar- 
rison at Hongkong, and also upon the right secured by 
treaty, to station a war vessel at each port. The Treaty of 
Wanghia (Article 17) mentioned "churches, cemeteries and 
hospitals" as well as residences, and stated: "The local 
authorities of the two governments shall select in concert 
sites for the foregoing objects, having due regard for 
the feelings of the people in the location thereof." And 
Article 19 made it obligatory upon the Chinese Government 
to "defend them (the Americans) from all insult or injury 
of any sort on the part of the Chinese." 

The 'setting apart' of sites for foreign settlement, as 
provided for in the English treaty, looked towards the 
establishment of 'foreign settlements' and the granting, of 
'concessions' which are now so numerous and which have 



THE POLICY OF CALEB CUSHING 169 

so seriously intrenched upon the integrity of Chinese ter- 
ritory and the sovereignty of the nation. The presence of 
the war vessels looked towards the gun-boat policy, the 
intimidation of local officials and even the quasi-protection 
of smugglers. The American provision for the 'selection' 
of sites, and for the placing of responsibility for their pro- 
tection upon the Chinese, pointed in the very opposite 
direction — -the maintenance of the integrity of China and 
the support of its sovereignty. The difference was this: 
England was approaching China through the old world, 
through India and other Oriental countries, where every 
precedent was in favor of the policy she was laying down; 
the United States was approaching China as one independ- 
ent nation to another, and the negotiations were in the 
hands of Yankees who recognized no color line and prided 
themselves that they yielded to no race prejudice. The 
provision for churches and hospitals, moreover, recalls the 
fact that Cushing was, at Macao, entirely in the hands of 
missionaries who were his only interpreters, and bears wit- 
ness to the ascending missionary interest in China which in 
later years increased so much faster than the commercial 
interest. 

Again, however, the theory and the practice of the 
Americans were not the same. Actually the Americans 
adopted the 'foreign settlement' plan of residence, — where- 
ever the English established it — and probably half of the 
irritation growing up between the Americans and the 
Chinese authorities in subsequent years was over the efforts 
of the Americans to secure residences where 'due regard to 
the feelings of the people in the location thereof gave the 
Chinese authorities a cover for refusing them. The lack of 
American war vessels in Chinese ports also permitted the 
growth of not a few claims, often small but exceedingly irri- 
tating, which might have been avoided had the Americans 
depended less upon Chinese protection and more upon show 
of force. Moreover in practice the Americans, unable to 
claim the protection of American war vessels, found their 
defense under the British flag. 



170 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

Disregarding general principles, and viewing the treaties 
in the light of the actual situation which confronted the 
enervated and tottering Chinese dynasty in its efforts to 
control its foreign guests, the English treaties were, aside 
from the opium question, more beneficent towards China 
than was the Treaty of Wanghia, although the latter may 
have been more benevolent. Furthermore the next ten 
years were to show that the English Government was much 
better prepared than the United States to live up to the 
few obligations which the foreigners had assumed towards 
the Chinese. The United States was in the Treaty of 
Wanghia putting on for the first time some of the garments 
of unperialism, only to find that the nation itself had not 
at all grown up to such ample vestments. 

It was a difficult road upon which the Treaty of Wanghia 
set the feet of the still immature and undeveloped power of 
the western hemisphere. Even before its boundaries had 
been pushed westward to the Pacific Ocean, the United 
States was placed in competition with older Powers, the pur- 
poses and policies of which were avowedly different from 
those of the United States. In this rivalry of nations new 
considerations of national honor and dignity must certainly 
prompt the United States to new policies and actions. For 
a comfortable relationship between merchants whose con- 
trolling purpose had been always to manage and accommo- 
date matters to avoid disturbance of the trade, was substi- 
tuted treaty obligations, violations of which became affronts 
to national dignity. For the newly created consular and 
diplomatic and judicial positions which the treaty called for, 
the United States had only a parochially-minded Congress 
to furnish the appropriations and the 'spoils system' to sup- 
ply the officials. The appointment of faithful party poli- 
ticians, usually wholly untrained in consular work and 
entirely inexperienced in the problems of international rela- 
tions in Asia, unable, even if willing, to look forward to 
promotion in the same service for meritorious work, opened 
the doors to dangers both of omission and commission. It 
was a perilous path on which the United States could not 



THE POLICY OF CALEB GUSHING 171 

long proceed successfully without altering many habits of 
action both at home and abroad. The policy of Caleb Gush- 
ing was to be guide. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

1. Chinese Eepository, May, 1840, p. 2. 

2. China Dispatches. Vol. 1, Mar. 2, 1844, Cushing to Upshur. 

3. The Cushing dispatches were published almost complete in S. 

Docs. 67 and 58:28-2, the latter containing the author's ex- 
tended discussion of extraterritoriality. 

4. China Dispatches, Vol. 2, May 25, 1844, Cushing to Upshur. 

5. Chinese Repository, Vol. 15, June, 1846, p. 306. It has been 

stated, erroneously, that a payment of money entered into the 
settlement of the Hsii A-man affair. 

6. Chinese Account of the Opium War: Pagoda Library, No. 1 

(1888), E. H. Parker (translator) p. 76. 

7. Davis' "China, During the War and Since the Peace," 2 vols. 

Vol. 2, p. 86. 

8. Koo's "Status of Aliens in China," pp. 132ff. 

9. Corres. Relative to Affairs in China, 1839-41; Private and Con- 

fidential, printed for the sole use of the Cabinet, Dispatch No. 
1, Feb. 20, 1840, Palmerston to Elliot. 

10. S. Ex. Doc. 58 :28-2, Disp. No. 97. 

11. A. J. Sargent's "Anglo-Chinese Commerce and Diplomacy," p. 

148. 

12. Accounts and Papers — China — 40, 1847, Orders, Ordinances, 

etc., concerning China. 



PAUT in 

A PERIOD OF CONFUSION 



CHAPTER IX 

THE FAK EAST BECOMES A POLITICAL QUESTION 

The Treaty of Wanghia, marking the entrance of the 
United States into Far Eastern politics, came at the begin- 
ning of a period characterized by great confusion in Asia, 
Europe and America. Within a generation the Chinese 
Empire was to pass through the Taiping Rebellion, the 
greatest civil war the world has ever known. The Empire 
of Japan was likewise to experience a thorough, though rela- 
tively bloodless, revolution resulting in a great change of 
political, economic and industrial structure. Great Britain 
was in the struggles of educational, industrial, constitutional 
and fiscal reform, accompanied by the introduction of Free 
Trade, great increase in manufacturing, and the extension 
of a commercial empire ; it was the age of Palmerston. On 
the Continent confusion was confounded in revolution and 
still more confounded by the entrance of Russia as a factor 
in the politics of both the East and the West. Europe was 
too engaged in domestic problems to look far beyond the 
borders of the continent and thus Great Britain and the 
United States were left almost alone to contest for the mar- 
kets of the world. This contest was real but the United 
States was badly handicapped because, far more than its 
commercial rival, the United States was in confusion. The 
conflict between the free and the slave states, accompanied 
by a great westward thrust to reach and hold the Pacific 
Coast and to round out both northern and southern boun- 
daries, was to issue in the American Civil War — itself the 
great test as to whether American republicanism would be 
able to endure. 

American policy in Asia was fabricated in the midst of 
this confusion and was directly related to it. In 1840 the 

175 



176 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

American Government first faced the question of framing a 
policy for Asia. A preliminary sketch of the structure was 
finished in 1844 in the Gushing treaty with Ghina. Within 
the next twenty-five years, notwithstanding the succession 
of changes in the administration of the Government of the 
United States, the break-up of political parties, and the 
ominous conflict of civil war, the nation had completed the 
drawings from the sketch which came from the hand of 
Caleb Gushing, and could claim a well-rounded, well-con- 
sidered foreign policy for Asia which successive generations 
had only to apply. The creation of such a poHcy in such a 
period was a notable achievement. 

The International Situation 

The preeminent characteristic of the period was the 
shortening of distances. Gommunications became quicker 
and cheaper; it was as though the globe suddenly con- 
tracted to a quarter of its former size. Glearly defined 
boundaries in the West, and in the East as well, became 
matters of supreme importance whereas they had been ig- 
nored in previous generations when time itself was the great 
boundary. Following rapidly upon the clipper ship with its 
quicker and cheaper transportation came the extended de- 
velopment of steam motive power, the transcontinental rail- 
way lines and the transoceanic steamers, and then with the 
introduction of the overland and submarine telegraph, the 
earth contracted again. These inventions were accompanied 
by the perfection of labor saving machinery and the multi- 
plication of the uses of steam power in manufacturing. 
Forthwith arose the question of markets for surplus prod- 
uce. Thus the entire Far Eastern question as related to 
the West suffered intensification and violent changes. 

British foreign policy as viewed from the United States 
was alarming. While England was steadily consolidating 
her Indian Empire by the annexation of Gwalior, Sind, the 
Punjab, Nagpur, Berar, Hyderabad, Tanjore, the Garnatic, 
Oudh, Burmah and Labuan, it was confidently expected 



THE FAR EAST BECOMES A POLITICAL QUESTION 177 

by Americans in the East that it was only a question of time 
when Great Britain would extend her empire beyond Hong- 
kong to include other portions of the Chinese Empire as 
well as parts of the Japanese islands. England under 
Palmerston was apparently girding herself both industrially 
and politically to capture and hold the markets of Asia. To 
the American people, to those in the South who grew cotton, 
to those in the North who manufactured it, to the mer- 
chants and ship-owners who carried it to Asia and were just 
awaking to the boundless markets which might be open, the 
program of Great Britain was formidable and perilous. 
Perhaps these apprehensions would never have greatly in- 
fluenced American foreign policy in the East, had they not 
been intensified by the activities of Great Britain in the 
western hemisphere, for after all American commercial 
interests there were still small. The British program in 
North America, however, was squarely before the entire 
American people. It involved questions of boundary and of 
strategic defense; furthermore it touched their pride. Eng- 
land sought to break down the Monroe Doctrine. 

Twice within ten years the United States and Great 
Britain appeared to be moving toward war, once over the 
northern boundary, and again over the control of the 
Isthmus. Even before Caleb Gushing went to Macao the 
British flag had been hoisted over the Sandwich Islands 
and only the disavowal of the act by the British Govern- 
ment had averted an ominous contest. Oregon, California, 
Mexico, Central America, the Sandwich Islands, China, 
Japan — these were all for the Americans either wholly or 
partly problems of the Pacific, and taken collectively they 
created a body of public opinion in the United States which, 
because of the territorial and industrial questions involved, 
became related even to the transcending issue of slavery. 
American policy in Asia was a more important theme in 
national politics in the decade which preceded the American 
Civil War than it became again until the occupation of the 
Philippine Islands in 1898. The American people were 
moving westward and that portion of the world which, when 



178 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

viewed from London and Paris was called the Far East, had 
become to the Americans not the East at all but the 
Farthest West. 

A mere catalogue of the places and dates along the 
Pacific seaboard would suffice to make vivid the associa- 
tion of American domestic problems and American foreign 
policy in the Pacific and the Far East between the Anglo- 
Chinese War and 1870.* 

The two other foreign powers with which the United 
States would have to deal in Asia were France and Russia. 
Neither of these powers at first exerted themselves in any 
way to attract the attention of the Americans, yet their 
presence added to the complexity of the political situation, 
and the manner and time of their entrance should be noted. 

Immediately following the signing of the Treaty of 
Wanghia, France negotiated a treaty with China which was 
similar in its general outlines to the American treaty, yet 
with one significant addition. This treaty, supplemented 
by an imperial rescript, secured to France a somewhat vague 
yet virtual protectorate over all Roman Catholic mission- 
aries and their Chinese converts. This concession was to 
become the cornerstone of French policy. France was com- 

f 1843 : Lord George Paulet seizes Sandwich Islands ; the United States fails 
to join Great Britain and France in promise never to take possession of the 
Islands.! 

1844 : Treaty of Wanghia — United States and China. Whitman coloniza- 
tion expedition to Oregon. 

1845 : Fremont exploring expedition to California. Annexation of Texas. 
1846 : "Fifty-four-forty-or-flght" dispute with Great Britain terminates in 

settlement of Oregon question by division of territory at 49th Parallel. Ameri- 
can occupation of Monterey, Mexican capital of California. 

1846 : Outbreak of war with Mexico. Treaty with New Granada (Colom- 
bia) granting to the United States the right of communication by any form 
across the Isthmus of Panama, in return for which the United States guaran- 
tees the neutrality of the route and establishes a protectorate over it in the 
interest of New Granada. 

1847 : Discovery of gold in California. 

1848 : Treaty of peace with Mexico, making the Rio Grande the southern 
boundary of the United States. Authorization of surveys for a transcontinental 
railroad and also for a transisthmian canal. Beginning of agitation for steam 
navigation of the Pacific. 

1849 : First American treaty with Sandwich Islands which follows immedi- 
ately on French intervention at Honolulu. 

1850 : Contract between Panama Railroad Company and Colombian Govern- 
ment, and very serious dispute with Great Britain over island of Manzanillo. 
Clayton-Bulwer treaty. 

1851 : Decision to make a treaty with Japan. 
1853 : Gadsden Purchase. 

1854 : First treaty between United States and Japan. Attempted annexa- 
tion of Sandwich Islands. 

1856 : Temporary recognition of Rivas-Walker government in Nicaragua. 

1867 : Alaska Purchase. First proposal to open Korea. Seward favors in 
certain contingencies annexation of Sandwich Islands. 



THE FAR EAST BECOMES A POLITICAL QUESTION 179 

mitted to the political support of Roman Catholic missions 
which were in turn to become the agency of French terri- 
torial, political and economic expansion in the Far East.^ 
The Russian Emperor sent Nicholai Muravieff as Gov- 
ernor General to the Russian possessions in eastern Siberia 
in 1847.^ The steps by which this energetic official estab- 
lished and consolidated the Russian position in Siberia and 
North China — the building of Petropavlovsk on Kamchatka 
in 1849, the founding of Nicholaievsk at the mouth of the 
Amur in 1850, the expedition down the Amur in the same 
year, the founding of Blagoveschensk at the mouth of the 
Ussuri in 1858, and the treaty of Aigun of the same year in 
which the Russians were given the exclusive right with the 
Chinese to the navigation of the Amur, Sungari and Ussuri 
rivers — were quite unnoticed by the Americans but were 
not overlooked by the British who were closely watching 
every southward movement of Russia into Asia. By the 
entrance of Russia into the political and commercial arena 
of the Far East four foreign powers — Great Britain, the 
United States, France and Russia — came into direct rela- 
tions with each other thus making Asiatic politics often 
merely a phase of the politics of the western world. 

Multiplication of American Interests in China 

With the tremendous expansive movement of the United 
States the development of American interests in China 
synchronized almost exactly. American ship-owners in the 
China trade in the fifth and sixth decades of the nineteenth 
century profited fabulously by the enormous freight rates 
at the time of the blockade of Canton at the beginning of 
the Anglo-Chinese War in 1840, and by the obstacles in the 
way of British trade at that time.* By the perfection of the 
American type of clipper ship, which appeared about 1840, 
they were able for a time almost to monopolize the trans- 
portation of tea even to England, for they could carry larger 
cargoes and deliver the tea in shorter time and in fresher 
condition than could their competitors. The rush from the 



180 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

Atlantic Coast to California after the discovery of gold 
created incredibly high freight and passenger rates for a 
voyage which carried the ship outward more than half way 
towards China. Thus the outward voyage which under 
ordinary circumstances was unremunerative because of the 
lack of cargoes became even more profitable than the return 
voyage. The abolition of the British navigation laws in 
1850 gave the Americans, temporarily, a still further advan- 
tage which they were well prepared to improve. The Cri- 
mean War withdrew a large amount of European tonnage 
for transport service, and again the Americans profited. 

American trade at Shanghai * grew with rapidity. This 
new port was, on the one hand, nearer to the Pacific Coast 
and to San Francisco, and on the other, nearer to the actual 
silk-growing and tea-producing districts of China than was 
the old port of Canton. Furthermore, Shanghai, as a foreign 
community, started de novo without the traditions which 
had grown up at Canton. The Americans were not a tradi- 
tion-loving people, and especially was this true when the 
backwash from San Francisco harbor began to pour its 
stream of derelict Americans on to the China coast. Yet 
even among the more law-abiding residents. Canton came 
to be looked upon as a pestilential spot from which it was 
well, as rapidly as possible, to transfer both residence and 
relations with the Chinese. Shanghai breathed a freer air 
in which life was in every way more comfortable. For the 
Americans it seemed especially desirable because it was 
less overshadowed than Canton by the British settlement 
of Hongkong. 

The Treaty of Wanghia and the subsequent imperial 
edicts of religious toleration had also opened the way for 
greatly increased missionary work, and the American 
Protestant Churches were the most energetic and aggres- 
sive in the extension of Protestant missions in the open 
ports. From the days of Dr. Robert Morrison down to 

*So rapidly did American trade at Shansliai grow after it once started that 
in the year ending September 30, 1833, although there had been 62 American 
vessels as compared with 94 British vessels, the total American tonnage was, 
41,501 as compared with 35,610 for the British." 



THE FAR EAST BECOMES A POLITICAL QUESTION 181 

1851 there had been a total of 150 Protestant missionaries 
to arrive in China. Of this number 15 had come from the 
Continent, 47 from England, and 88 from the United 
States.^ 

American interests in China, therefore, in the period 
after 1850 are seen to be both enlarged and multiplied over 
what. they had been in the pre-treaty days. Down to the 
time of the first treaty little mattered save the preservation 
of undisturbed commercial relationships. Now this com- 
merce had grown immensely and had taken very deep 
root in at least one other port. In addition the missionaries 
had come in large numbers to every open port and their 
advent marked the beginning in the United States of a phil- 
anthropic, and also a sentimental interest in China which 
operated strongly in the formation of American public 
opinion. Its immediate effect on the American policy in 
China was greatly to increase the demand for a further 
opening up of the country. The impatience of the mis- 
sionary often exceeded that of the trader. To these two 
interests, one commercial and the other philanthropic, was 
now being added a third — a political interest. 

The problems of Asia as viewed by the Western world 
ceased to be purely commercial; they became political. 
Had the Anglo-Chinese War (1839-42) been settled by a 
purely commercial treaty the Far Eastern question might 
have remained for a time a commercial one, but England 
planted at Hongkong an outpost of the India Empire, which 
had already been advancing by easy stages from Penang and 
Singapore. The British occupation of Hongkong compelled 
all other foreign nations from that time onward to deal with 
Asia as a political problem. It was the delusion of some 
American statesmen in the eighties and nineties that the 
United States need recognize no political problem in Asia, 
that American interests in the East were purely commercial, 
but this assumption avoided plain facts. Caleb Cushing 
negotiated the Treaty of Wanghia in 1844 with one eye on 
the political establishment of Great Britain at Hongkong. 
Commodore Perry in 1853-54 did not even make a commer- 



182 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

cial treaty with Japan, but he staked out a pohtical program 
which failed of adoption through no timidity of its author, 
and notwithstanding its failure had its influence on subse- 
quent policy. The struggle of the Americans to secure 
Shanghai as an international rather than a British port, at 
the very time Perry was in the East, was more political than 
commercial. The relations of the Western powers to the 
Taiping Rebellion, and the relations of Great Britain, 
France, Russia and the United States in the negotiations of 
the treaties of Tientsin in 1858 were very far from being 
purely commercial. The 'cooperative policy' and the entire 
course of the first ten years of American diplomatic rela- 
tions with Japan were controlled by political considerations. 
The first American efforts to open Korea were of the same 
character. 

The distinction between the policy of the United States 
and the policy of other powers in Asia in this period is not 
that the American policy was purely commercial while the 
others were political, but that the American policy, although 
political, followed diplomatic rather than military channels. 
Military proposals were not lacking from the American 
representatives in the East ; they even issued at times from 
the Department of State, but with very few exceptions these 
proposals failed of execution and did not result in the occu- 
pation of territory. American policy was preeminently the 
policy of Americans. As will be elaborated in the following 
pages it was a composite into the making of which went a 
great variety of proposals, official and unofficial, some bel- 
ligerent, others most pacific, but all directed towards secur- 
ing for American interests in Asia a diplomatic equivalent 
for Hongkong and what the British possession stood for, 
viz., territorial occupation of Asia by Western powers. 

By the Americans it was foreseen that some day their 
trans-Pacific commerce would be very great. This expecta- 
tion reacted on American policy in the Far East in two 
ways. In the first place it made the Americans increasingly 
alert to see that no other power should take any step which 
would later become a handicap to American interest; that is 



THE FAR EAST BECOMES A POLITICAL QUESTION 183 

to say, it helped to confirm an open door policy. But it did 
more. It raised questions of how this expected great com- 
merce with Asia might in future years receive adequate 
protection. It sent the Americans into the Pacific to look 
for harbors, to Japan for more open ports, and to Formosa 
for coal mines which were deemed a necessity for the success 
of steam navigation. This alertness and this search, this 
planning for the future, which then seemed so sure and so 
welcome to the cotton growers and manufacturers alike, 
immediately put the United States in the way of interna- 
tional collisions of grave import, for were not the Ameri- 
cans setting out upon a path already well-trodden by Eng- 
land? and Russia? and France? and did not the closed ports 
of Japan lie directly in the way? 

A brief reference to details will make more intelligi- 
ble the force of this situation as it was felt in the United 
States a few years after the signing of the Treaty of 
Wanghia. 

As early as May, 1848, T. Butler King, of the Committee 
on Naval Affairs, introduced into the House of Representa- 
tives a report recommending steam navigation from the 
United States to the Sandwich Islands and China.'^ He 
exhibited an exhaustive analysis of the conditions of the 
American trade. While the United States and England 
were then great competitors he argued that the English 
imports contained one element of decay, viz., opium, and he 
expressed the opinion that England would in the future be 
very dependent upon the United States for the raw material 
for her cotton trade with China. The American trade, l^e 
asserted, was therefore in a far more favorable potential 
position. It had already been proved that the Americans 
could meet English competition in cheap cotton goods, and 
it merely remained for the American manufacturer to study 
more carefully and adapt his fabrics more to the wants and 
tastes of the Chinese people. In spite of the growing pro- 
duction of cotton in India, Mr. King felt assured of the 
American cotton market in China if only the transportation 
problem could be solved. He said : 



184 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

"Certainty and rapidity of intercourse only are wanted to bring 
these two great nations [China and the United States] nearer together, 
to give them a more perfect knowledge of each other, develop their re- 
sources and build up a commerce more extensive than has probably 
ever heretofore existed between two nations. The improved condition 
of our relations with that country under the new treaties, and the 
extension of our territorial possessions to the Pacific have placed it 
in our power ultimately to communicate with China almost as rapidly 
as we now do with Europe. To accomplish this, however, we must 
extend telegraphic wires across the continent, and establish a line 
of steamers from San Francisco, or Monterey, to Shanghai and 
Canton." 

Mr. King drew attention to the fact that a line of 
steamers had already been established from New York to 
Havana and Panama, and that there was already a govern- 
ment mail line up the California coast from the Isthmus to 
the Columbia River. Lieutenant M. F. Maury of the Naval 
Observatory submitted a report which was attached to the 
document showing that because of the 'great circle route' 
to the East, the United States had already taken a step of 
three thousand miles on its way toward China. He pointed 
out that the steamer route from Panama by way of the 
'great circle' was 1200 miles shorter to China than the 
route formerly taken by way of the Sandwich Islands. New 
Orleans, by this new route, was actually 3000 miles nearer 
China than Panama was by way of Honolulu, and from 
Monterey to Japan was not as far as from Panama to the 
Sandwich Islands. 

The proposed steamer line to China was not suffered to 
be forgotten. John P. Kennedy, Secretary of the Navy in 
the closing days of the Pierce administration, reporting to 
the Senate in response to request (February 10, 1853),^ 
urged the necessity of such a line of steamers without delay, 
either by direct agency of the government, or by the en- 
couragement of individual enterprise. Kennedy drew atten- 
tion to the need of coal which would be created if such 
steamers were established. He recommended the establish- 
ment of coal deposits on some of the islands in the Pacific, 
stating that at that time the United States did not possess 
a single coal depot for the supply of naval steamers in either 



THE FAR EAST BECOMES A POLITICAL QUESTION 185 

the Atlantic or the Pacific oceans. He proposed a plan by 
which he thought such depots could be supplied in the 
Pacific at little cost, by means of the development of an 
outward trade to China in tobacco and an inward trade from 
the Pacific islands in guano. He suggested with reference 
to the tobacco trade: 

"The use of opium in China has been the great cause of preventing 
the extension of commerce into that country, while at the same time, 
many believe, it has almost entirely shut out the lights and advantages 
of Christianity. If, by any means that our government shall employ, 
a trade between us and China shall be opened, there is reason to 
suppose that our tobacco will be generally received there as a sub- 
stitute for this poisonous drug. This article, now so abundantly pro- 
duced in our tobacco-growing states, will then become the pioneer of 
our trade, and open the way for our manufactures of cotton, wool, 
and particularly of cutlery and other manufactures of iron — in which 
latter articles the trade between Great Britain and China is now very 
large. 

"These two articles," thought Kennedy, "of tobacco and guano, 
would alone, without other commodities, afford the means of opening a 
rapid and profitable intercourse with China. The product of tobacco 
would be increased in a measure corresponding to the increased de- 
mand of the two hundred millions of Chinese consumers, and thus 
our national wealth would be greatly augmented." 

The proposal for the steamship line remained in abey- 
ance, but the Perry expedition was already on its way to 
secure the coal supply. 

Commissioners and Consuls 

Notwithstanding the recognition of the growing impor- 
tance of American affairs in the East, they suffered neglect. 
That their importance was recognized may be seen in the 
Perry expedition ; that they were neglected is proven by the 
records of the consulates and the legation in China. There 
were fits and starts ; brilliant efforts and then lapses. Con- 
tinuity was lacking. It would even appear as though the 
Americans, while well equipped to initiate things effectively 
in Asia, were either by temperament or by the constitu- 
tional structure of their government, incapable of seeing 
them through. 



186 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

President Tyler had lost no time in recommending that 
Congress make suitable provision for the establishment of 
diplomatic relations with China, and for carrying out the 
purposes of the Treaty of Wanghia.'' He asked for the crea- 
tion of the position of permanent commissioner, the enact- 
ment of legislation for the establishment of extraterritorial 
authority, and the replacement of the old and objectionable 
merchant-consul system by an adequately manned consular 
establishment independent of trade. The first of these 
recommendations was acted on immediately although a 
salary was fixed at a rate too low to support the commis- 
sioner in decency; the second duty remained in abeyance 
until 1848 and was then delegated to wholly incompetent 
hands; while the merchant-consul system lingered until 
1854, and then was partially replaced by consular establish- 
ments which were in a few respects better but in most 
respects even worse. 

Early in 1845 Alexander H. Everett of Massachusetts 
was appointed commissioner to China at a salary of $5,000, 
and Dr. Peter Parker was named as secretary and interpre- 
ter. Everett was charged with 'the general superintendence 
of the spirit of the treaty,' and instructed to cultivate the 
good will of the Chinese Government and people. He was 
under the embarrassment, however, of being quite without 
authority to exercise judicial or executive functions under 
the extraterritorial grant. 

"It cannot be pretended," read his instructions from James 
Buchanan, "that one of our consuls at the five poxts could try and 
punish an American citizen for murder or any other crime. What 
is then to be done? Shall a citizen guilty of murder or other high 
crime pass tmpunished? Independently of the other evil results of 
such an impunity, nothing would more exasperate the Chinese than to 
witness such a spectacle. . . . They never could be made to under- 
stand that we had not violated the treaty." ^'' 

The President, therefore, directed that an accused party 
be sent home for trial. 

It speaks well for the character of the community at 
Canton that there were no occasions where it was necessary 
to fall back on this executive order. The Americans did not 



THE FAR EAST BECOMES A POLITICAL QUESTION 187 

begin to enter and settle in numbers at the other open ports 
until after the consular courts had been created in 1848. 
The great difficulties came later when laws were ample but 
consuls were lacking or ineffective, and there was so little 
provision for the enforcement of such judgments as came 
from the consular courts. 

The 'destitute condition of the consular establishments' 
was made the subject of a dispatch by Commissioner 
McLane in 1854. The facts reported at that time may be 
taken as typical of conditions for most of the period before 
1860, and some of the reported deficiencies were not cor- 
rected for half a century. The consulate at Ningpo was in 
charge of Rev. D. B, McCartee, a medical missionary who 
received no salary, was allowed no funds for expenses other 
than stationary, had no office quarters other than the mis- 
sion building, and exercised no judicial functions. A new 
consul had arrived a^Ningpo. His salary for judicial services 
was one thousand dollars ; for the balance of his emolument 
he had to depend upon consular fees which were next to 
nothing. He was unable to speak the language and had no 
allowances for an interpreter. He lived with "rigid 
economy" but nothing could "be more disreputable and 
derogatory to the dignity and honor of the country than the 
condition" in which he was placed. The Foochow consulate 
was in the hands of a merchant who had been appointed 
acting consul by no other authority than that of his prede- 
cessor who also had been an acting consul. The regularly 
appointed consul was on his way but upon arrival at his post 
his condition would be no less forlorn than that at Amoy. 
There was little or no American trade at these ports, but 
extraterritoriality prevailed and made them the resort of 
outlaws who either were American citizens or claimed their 
immunities. The newly appointed consul at Shanghai, 
whose remuneration consisted only of $1000 a year for his 
judicial services and his fees, was living in a seamen's board- 
ing-house or hotel. He was without means to secure an 
office or a 'respectable domestic establishment and subsist- 
ence.' He was dependent upon the British consulate and 



188 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

upon merchants for the loan of the services of in- 
terpreters. 

In contrast to this condition Mr. McLane pointed to the 
British estabUshment which consisted of a Minister with 
secretary and interpreter at $30,000, and five well manned 
consular offices at a cost of $10,000 each.^^ 

The United States paid dearly in loss of prestige for 
these economies. The opening of the new ports and the 
boundless expectations for the new trade drew from the four 
quarters of the globe a crowd of adventurers who had no 
other trade or profession than to live by their wits. They 
were of the type which gave the reputation to the usual 
pioneer community of the western continent. Then came 
the discovery of gold in California, followed by the rush and 
the failure of most of the gold-seekers. Luckless adventur- 
ers drifted out to Shanghai ; and the deserting sailors in San 
Francisco harbor were 'shanghaied' and when they reached 
Shanghai they promptly deserted again, scattered up and 
down the coast, and attempted to live as best they could off 
the country. 

Those were wild days in the open ports — uncomfortable 
for all, and for the Chinese terrifying. The reports of the 
American consuls and the dispatches of the commissioners 
abound in accounts of the scandals, crimes, and atrocities of 
these derelicts. Commissioner Humphrey Marshall, for 
example, reported in 1853 as follows: ^^ 

"There are now in this port (Shanghai) at least one hundred and 
fifty sailors ashore, men of all nations, who go into the Chinese city 
and drink and riot and brawl, daily and nightly. They presume to 
defy all law, because they have tried the jail and find that they 
cannot be confined in it. No other punishment has been inflicted upjDn 
them yet besides confinement. They have no money from which to 
collect a fine. I earnestly request the President to give the authority 
to lease a lot of ground in this vicinity on which to erect a jail with 
a yard attached thereto, in which sailors may have air and exercise, 
and that Congress shall be urged to make an appropriation for the 
purpose of erecting a jail thereon. The marshal can reside in the 
tenement, and the fines and forfeitures will probably pay for a guard 
to attend the premises. 

"The United States having assumed jurisdiction over their own 
citizens in China, are expressly bound to compel them to keep the 



THE FAR EAST BECOMES A POLITICAL QUESTION 189 

peace, and this cannot be done as long as there is no place to confine 
the ^delinquents in, except a loathsome hole inhabited by the foulest 
lepers, and in itself so weak that a man of American energies can 
kick his way out in a few minutes." 

These ruffians may have been deficient in character but 
they did not lack initiative. Many of them joined the mili- 
tary or naval service of the Taipings or of the Imperialists, 
defying the proclamations of the representatives of their 
government who ordered them to desist. Others enlisted in 
the opium smuggling. Some entered the coolie trade. Still 
others engaged in the business of 'convoying.' * 

By no means all of these foreigners were Americans, but 
even many of those who were not found it convenient to 
claim citizenship in a country which was entirely without 
jails, without sufficient naval vessels to prevent the abuse 
of its flag, and possessed, at least in some cases, of indulgent 
consular officials who could be induced to give an approval, 
tacit or otherwise, to the fraudulent transfer of ship's 
papers, and to practices in plain violation both of the treaty 
and the laws of the United States. The situation was at 
once disgraceful to the American reputation and dangerous 
to the entire foreign community, for the depredations of 
these individuals created ill-will and wrath among the 
Chinese which might any day lead to the gravest conse- 
quences for all,^* 

The failure of Congress to make adequate provision for 
consuls and for jails was by no means the worst of the 
situation. Even the commissionership suffered. A brief 
summary of the way in which the position of commissioner 
was filled before 1858 will be sufficient. 

Alexander H. Everett, the first commissioner, was ap- 
pointed March 13, 1845, but owing to illness did not reach 
China until nineteen months later (October 29, 1846) and 
he died in China the following June. Everett was, perhaps, 

*The prevalency along the coast of piracy which the Chinese Government, 
distracted by the Taipings and other rebels, was unable to suppress, led to the 
development of a system of protection for the native junks which was furnished 
by foreigners, unofiScially, and which was paid for by the junk owners. At first 
the payments were made willingly, but as abuses crept in the conveying sys- 
tem degenerated into nothing less than blackmail and piracy.^* 



190 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

the ablest commissioner ever appointed, and the only experi- 
enced diplomat. He had served as private secretary to 
John Quincy Adams when the latter was Minister to Russia, 
had remained for a time in the diplomatic service, and had 
been at one time Minister at Madrid. However, he was in 
China too short a time to render any important service. His 
successor, John W. Davis, was appointed January 3, 1848, 
and arrived in China in August. Thus, from the time of the 
signing of the treaty of Wanghia until the middle of 1848 — 
four years — there was in China a regularly appointed com- 
missioner for only eight months. Before Everett's arrival. 
Commodore James Biddle, to whom Everett had delegated 
his powers, acted as commissioner, and after the death of 
Everett, Dr. Peter Parker, secretary of the legation, served 
as commissioner until the arrival of Davis. 

John W. Davis was, by profession, a physician. He had 
served three terms in the House of Representatives from 
Indiana, and had been elected Speaker of the House in 
1845. After his return from China he became governor of 
Oregon Territory ; he was also the presiding officer of the 
National Democratic Convention at Baltimore in 1852. He 
retired from China in May, 1850, after a residence of a little 
less than two years. It became extremely difficult to find 
another to take his place. The position was offered to a 
lawyer from Tennessee who accepted it and then declined 
when he found that he would be unable to live on $2000 a 
year in China, as he had hoped, thus saving $4000 a year out 
of his salary. It was offered to another who accepted and 
then declined also because of the salary. To still a third it 
was offered only to be declined. In his annual message, 
December 2, 1851, President Fillmore reported: ^^ 

''The office of commissioner .to China remains unfilled. Several 
persons have been appointed and the place has been offered to others, 
all of whom have declined its acceptance on the ground of the inade- 
quacy of the compensation. The annual allowance by law is $6000 and 
there is no provision for any outfit. I earnestly recommend the con- 
sideration of this subject to Congress. . . . China is understood to be 
a country in which living is very expensive, and I know no reason 
why the American commissioner sent thither should not be placed, in 



THE FAR EAST BECOMES A POLITICAL QUESTION 191 

regard to compensation, on an equal footing with ministers who repre- 
sent this country at the courts of Europe." 

In August, 1852, the post was offered to Humphrey Mar- 
shall of Kentucky, Congress having not heeded the Presi- 
dent's request that the salary be increased, and Marshall 
accepted, reaching China in January, 1853. Meanwhile the 
duties of the office of commissioner had been discharged by 
the secretary. Dr. Parker, who had resigned his position as 
a missionary and was supplementing his meagre salary of 
$2500 by private practice as a physician, 

Humphrey Marshall was a graduate of the United States 
Military Academy at West Point, a lawyer by profession, 
who had served two terms in Congress from Kentucky. 
After returning to the United States, he was again elected 
to Congress for one term. At the outbreak of the Civil War 
he became a Brigadier General in the Confederate service.^ *^ 
Marshall's service in China covered slightly more than a 
year, 

Robert M. McLane, who succeeded Marshall, arrived in 
China in March, 1854, and left the following December. He 
was the son of Lewis McLane who had served as Secretary 
of State for a year under President Jackson and had been 
senator from Delaware, and United States Minister to Eng- 
land. The son had been a student at West Point, and was a 
lawyer by profession. He had served in the House of Repre- 
sentatives for two terms. Subsequently he held the im- 
portant diplomatic posts of Minister to Mexico (1859-60) 
and Minister to France (1885-89), ^^ 

After the departure of McLane from China, Dr, Parker, 
as usual, became Charge, but within a few months it became 
necessary for him to return to the United States for reasons 
of health. In his absence Commodore Joel Abbot, com- 
manding the United States Squadron on the China station, 
was delegated ''to meet any emergencies that may arise." ^^ 

In June, 1855, S. Wells Williams, an unordained mis- 
sionary who had gone to China in 1834 to take charge of 
the printing press of the American Board of Commissioners 
for Foreign Missions, was notified of his appointment as 



192 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

secretary and interpreter of the legation, at a salary of 
$2500.* Dr. Williams had acted as interpreter for Commo- 
dore Perry in the Japan expedition. A few weeks later 
(September 5, 1855) Dr. Parker was appointed commis- 
sioner under the new diplomatic law of March 1, 1855, at a 
salary of $15,000. f Dr. Parker reached China at the begin- 
ning of the following year and served for about twenty 
months, retiring by his own choice, when William B. Reed, 
a Pennsylvania lawyer, was appointed to China with the 
title of envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary. 

In the midst of these conditions of confusion — in the 
United States, in England, on the Continent, and in China 
— the policy of the Cushing treaty was put to its first tests. 
This policy was, in a word, to occupy no portion of Asia as 
a military or naval base and to depend entirely upon the 
pledges of the Chinese Government. It soon developed that 
American interests were to be exposed to danger at two 
points; the aggressions and pretensions of other treaty 
powers threatened to curtail the privileges granted to 
Americans under the treaty; and, the Chinese provincial 
authorities, the local gentry and rabble, sometimes sup- 
ported by the Imperial Government at Peking, were un- 
willing in many cases to make effective the rights accorded 
by treaties to which China was an unwilling party. These 
tests revealed a fallacy in the Cushing policy. The policy 
rested upon the false assumption that the Imperial Govern- 
ment was not only possessed of the utmost good will towards 
the Americans, but that it was also strongly centralized and 
able to enforce its commands upon the provinces; further, 
that China was strong enough to resist the pressure which 
the other treaty powers were able to exert by means of mili- 
tary force, and would protect the Americans in the enjoy- 
ments of the rights which the Empire had granted. 

So long as foreign powers in China were competing for 

♦Commodore Perry expressed a lively interest in the appointment and hoped 
that Williams would accept it. "In these days it is an unheard of case ; such 
offices under our government being seldom given except on application, then too 
frequently with little or no respect to the qualifications of the applicant. I 
look upon this appointment as indicating a sort of moral reform at 
Washington." ^^ 

tThe following year the salary was reduced to $12,000 where it has remained 
ever since. 



THE FAR EAST BECOMES A POLITICAL QUESTION 193 

preferred position, and so long as the Chinese of the open 
ports resented the presence of the foreigners, the Treaty of 
Wanghia was of only nominal value. 

BIBLIOGEAPHICAL NOTES 

1. The simplest method of following through in greater detail the 

policy of the United States in these particulars is to read the 
historical sections under the appropriate headings to be found 
in the index of Moore's Digest of International Law. Copious 
extracts from the official documents will be found there. 

2. Journal des operations diplomatiques de la Legation frangaise en 

Chine, redige par J. M. Callery (Macao, 1845) ; "Cambridge 
Modern History," VoL XI, pp. 811-2. 

3. Morse's "International Eel. of the Chinese Empire," Vol. 1, 

chap. 19. 

4. Forbes' "Personal Reminiscences," p. 151. 

6. H. Doc. 123:33-1, p. 374; see also Morse, Vol. 1, pp. 342-3. 

6. Chinese Repository, Vol. 20, p. 520. 

7. H. Eepts. 596, 30-1. 

8. S. Ex. Doc. 49 -.32-2. 

9. S. Ex. Doc. 58 :28-2. 

10. China Instructions, Vol. 1, Apr. 15, 1845 (Dept. of State). All 

of the instructions to Everett are printed in J. B. Moore's 
Works of James Buchanan, Vol 6. 

11. S. Ex. Doc. 22 :35-2, pp. 165-167. 

12. H. Doc. 123 :33-l, p. 224. 

13. Morse, Vol. 1, pp. 406-8. 

14. H. Doc. 123:33-1, p. 167; S. Ex. Doc. 22:35-2, pp. 422, 437, 625, 

732, 823 ; H. Jour. 34-1, p. 1048 ; H. Misc. Docs. 2 :35-l ; H. Ex. 
Doc. 68:35-2. 

15. Eichardson's Messages, Vol. 5, p. 122. 

16. Poore's "Political Eegister," p. 524. 

17. Ibid., p. 516. 

18. S. Ex. Doc. 22 :35-2, p. 609. 

19. S. Wells Williams' "Life and Letters," pp. 235-6. 



CHAPTER X 

SETTLEMENT OF THE SHANGHAI LAND QUESTION 

The British, American and French treaties with China 
left open for further discussion a most important principle 
as to the way in which the foreigners should occupy lands in 
the open ports. In pre-treaty days at Canton the foreigners 
had all lived together in the restricted area of the factories 
where each individual or firm, regardless of nationality, 
rented from the hong merchants who were the owners. The 
British Treaty of the Bogue (1843) provided that under the 
new regime in the five ports "grounds and houses . . . shall 
be set apart by the local officers in communication with the 
consul." The American treaty merely stated that the local 
officers of the two governments "shall select, in concert, the 
sites" for residences, churches, cemeteries and hospitals. 

How then were the foreigners to live in the open ports? 
Were they to continue the practice of residing together as of 
old at Canton in a single international settlement set apart 
for their use; or, were they to scatter, each resident inde- 
pendently, with the consent of his consul and the local 
Chinese official, selecting such residence as his fancy pre- 
ferred ; or, were the nationals of each treaty power to estab- 
lish their own national settlement, thus forming in each 
open port a series of national concessions? When viewed in 
the light of subsequent history it is seen that this question 
involved one of the most fundamental principles in the 
relations of China with the treaty powers. A single inter- 
national settlement in each port involved a degree of inter- 
national cooperation among the treaty powers such as had 
no precedent. The scattering of the foreign residents 
among the Chinese residences was open to the gravest 
objections, sanitary, commercial and social. To the Chinese 

194 



SETTLEMENT OF THE SHANGHAI LAND QUESTION 195 

also this was objectionable because the foreigner was exempt 
from Chinese laws. On the other hand the creation of 
separate national settlements was likely to bring the treaty 
powers into collision with each other and with China be- 
cause of the most-favored-nation clause. In each port there 
was naturally a most favored site for business purposes, 
determined by the contour of the land and its accessibility 
to the best anchorage. If any single nation were to occupy 
this most favored site the other nations might invoke the 
most-favored-nation clause in their own treaties, and de- 
mand admission. The question came to an issue very soon 
after the opening of Shanghai to trade. 

Early Americans in Shanghai 

The first American resident at Shanghai was Henry G. 
Wolcott, representing Russell and Company. Relying on 
the Imperial rescript which had extended the privileges 
granted to the British to all foreigners he had gone to the 
new port even before Caleb Cushing had reached Macao to 
negotiate the American treaty. In the course of time Wol- 
cott desired to lease a piece of land and went to the taotai 
(Prefect or Intendent of Circuit) to have the lease sanc- 
tioned.^ This official replied that he had already entered 
into an agreement with the British consul. Captain G. 
Balfour, that all land within certain boundaries, which in- 
cluded the site which Wolcott desired, was to be leased only 
through the agency of the British consul.- Wolcott then 
addressed himself to Captain Balfour and was given permis- 
sion to secure the land on conditions similar to those enjoyed 
by British subjects. The lease was immediately effected 
but complications arose. Wolcott paid a visit to the South 
in December, 1845, and when he returned he carried a com- 
mission granted to him by Commodore Biddle, then acting 
commissioner, as "acting American Consul" for Shanghai. 

Wolcott immediately erected a flagstaff and proceeded to 
fly the American flag as suited his consular dignity. Captain 
Balfour formally protested to both Wolcott and the taotai, 



196 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

requesting the latter to prevent use of the United States flag 
in the British settlement. Meanwhile the British Govern- 
ment had extended its authority over the port to the extent 
of issuing certain port regulations which Wolcott was very 
reluctant to accept. Affairs at Shanghai had evidently 
reached a condition which was never contemplated in the 
American treaty which had been signed eighteen months 
before.^ 

The British claim at Shanghai had arisen in a very 
natural way. By Imperial rescript the taotais at the various 
open ports had been ordered to consult with the consuls of 
the treaty powers and to make the necessary arrangements 
by which the foreigners of all nations could establish them- 
selves. The only consul at Shanghai was Captain Balfour, 
and this ofiBicial naturally exercised himself to care for 
British interests. There is no reason to suppose that Bal- 
four, who had come from India where all precedent was on 
his side, ever considered the possibility of anything but a 
series of national concessions at Shanghai. The taotai con- 
ferred with him and in November, 1845, issued a proclama- 
tion in which it was agreed that "the ground north of the 
Yang King Pang and south of the Lekea Chang (two 
creeks) should be rented to English merchants for erecting 
their buildings and residing thereon." This tract of land, 
lying outside the city wall and fronting on the best anchor- 
age, was the most favorable location for foreign residence 
and business. The taotai further agreed in the proclama- 
tion, so it is believed, that no other than the British flag 
should be hoisted; "that no part of the ground should be 
rented to other than British subjects through and by the 
British consul; and, that all Chinese dwellings thereon 
should be as speedily as possible removed, and that no other 
Chinese dwellings be permitted." While the claim was 
established in a very natural way there is no reason to sup- 
pose that the Imperial Government had the remotest inten- 
tion of granting any exclusive rights to the British at 
Shanghai, and the concession was certainly in conflict with 
the spirit and intention of the American treaty which had 



SETTLEMENT OF THE SHANGHAI LAND QUESTION 197 

been signed before the taotai had issued his procla- 
mation. 

Commodore Biddle on his way to Japan in June, 1846, 
stopped at Shanghai and conferred with both Wolcott and 
Balfour. The latter explained to him that the British 
municipal and port regulations had been established to 
prevent anarchy in the new settlement, the growing trade of 
which required some sort of ordered government. The com- 
modore advised Wolcott to recognize the port regulations 
which were obviously so necessary, but not to pull down the 
American flag. But Wolcott represented a Canton firm in 
which the old pre-treaty traditions of conciliation and com- 
promise were very strong. He not only accepted the port 
regulations but also pulled down the flag. 

A truce was thus established which continued until Feb- 
ruary, 1848, when the captain of the American ship Mon- 
tauk came into collision with some additional port regula- 
tions which had been issued the preceding year. The 
American captain insisted upon the right to fire a morning 
and an evening gun. The British consul claimed that this 
was a violation of the regulations and called upon the taotai 
to forbid it. The Americans, now considerably increased in 
numbers over the time when Wolcott had made his surren- 
der, replied that they did not consider themselves subject 
to any port regulations which had not been approved by 
the Government of the United States. Both the British and 
the Americans appealed the case to the representatives of 
their respective governments at Hongkong and Canton. 
Sir John Davis, the British minister, did not sustain the 
contention of the British consul. The issue was thus post- 
poned, though only for a few months. 

Shortly afterwards J. Alsop Griswold, the regularly ap- 
pointed American consul, and also a member of Russell and 
Company, came to Shanghai and raised his flag in the Brit- 
ish settlement, presumably at the same location where Wol- 
cott had pulled it down two years before. The British con- 
sul made his objections, but the flag remained. 

The issue was again raised early in 1849 when the French 



198 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

consul secured from the taotai an area for a French settle- 
ment between the English settlement and the city wall. In 
this new area the arrangements as to leasing land were to be 
similar to those in the British settlement, viz., that the per- 
son desiring to lease should first apply to the French consul. 
Consul Griswold immediately protested,* writing to the 
taotai (April 11, 1849) as follows: 

"There is nothing in the said treaties which gives any foreign 
representative ■ a right to claim, or renders it incumbent on you to 
grant, particular districts to one nation, excluding the people of other 
countries, except by consent of the consuls to whom the grant is 
made. . . . On July 14, 1846, your predecessor offered land which 
includes the grant now made to the French to the United States 
citizens. This tender was waived for the time being as Mr. Wolcott 
considered it open for further discussion." 

Griswold also pointed out to the taotai that to make such 
grants to foreigners would alienate the sympathy of the 
gentry for miles around. The British consul also protested 
against the provision that to secure land in the French con- 
cession the subjects of other nations would have to act 
through the French consul, although this provision in the 
French grant had been copied from the grant made to Cap- 
tain Balfour.* Thus the British and American consuls as- 
sumed a united front and both issued proclamations to their 
nations informing them that the protection of the respective 
flags would be given to land wherever situated.*^ 

To United States Commissioner Davis at Macao, Gris- 
wold wrote: 

"If we are now to admit the principles of these grants, and demand 
a similar one, it could only be given in a very unfavorable position, 
and the majority of our citizens who come hereafter would find it to 
their interest to locate themselves near the rest of their countrymen, 
and thus come within the English and French concessions, rendering 
the one we may obtain of little avail, and leaving us in the power 
of the Chinese and foreign representatives to restrict us to the 
allotment however unsuitable it may prove for business purposes." 

In this letter Griswold reviewed the history of the con- 
troversy and pointed out that the conditions had materially 

*Morse states : "The same rule had been inserted in the agreement for the 
English settlement, but it had not been acted on," — a very inadequate statement 
of what actually happened.^ 



SETTLEMENT OF THE SHANGHAI LAND QUESTION 199 

changed. When the original grant was made to the English 
there were no other consuls in Shanghai. Now there were 
four. Captain Balfour had insisted upon exclusive juris- 
diction because of the necessity of preserving order. Now 
the various governments were in a position to cooperate in 
this matter. Griswold thought that there was little to fear 
from the present French and English consuls, but the 
claims to which they held might make difficulty at some 
future date. He stated that he had never recognized the 
British claims and that he had never had any trouble in 
securing all the land the Americans wanted. But he 
thought that the time had come to protest, not only against 
the grants themselves, but also against the idea of putting 
consuls in control of them. 

American Protests Against Exclusive Concessions 

Immediately upon the receipt of the report from Gris- 
wold, Commissioner Davis took up the matter with Sen, 
the Viceroy at Canton, drawing attention to the fact that 
the concession to France at Shanghai violated Article 17 of 
the Treaty of Wanghia, which jirovided for the residence 
of Americans at the five ports. Davis wrote : 

''How can these immunities be enjoyed by the citizens of the 
United States, if all the eligible situations for the above mentioned 
objects have been ceded to other nations and that, too, long before 
they have occasion to occupy them? Disclaiming any desire to 
abridge the right granted by China to other nations by treaty, I must 
protest against this and all other acts of a subordinate officer of the 
Chinese Government which is intended to abrogate the rights 
guaranteed to American citizens by treaty, and while we look to His 
Imperial Majesty for the fulfillment of Treaty stipulations with us, 
we must regard as a nullity any act of his subordinate officers which 
comes in conflict with our rights under the treaty." 

The Chinese High Commissioner, between two fires, 
agreed that the local authorities at Shanghai had no right 
to make such agreements but as the discussion with Davis 
proceeded Sen's views came to be tempered with notions of 
expediency. The American commissioner remained uu- 



200 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

moved, and at length Sen intimated that he could see no 
good reason to repudiate the conditions in which affairs had 
been placed by the grants to the English and the French, 
and he hoped that the Americans would be content to have 
a distinct quarter set apart for them elsewhere. Thus the 
matter rested for a few months, and then Davis wrote to 
Sen that he had decided to postpone the settlement of the 
concession matter until some definite case arose.* 

The American consul himself soon presented an oppor- 
tunity to have the case reviewed. He purchased ground 
inside the British concession, settled the terms with the 
owners of the land, and presented his conveyance for the 
seal of the intendant and for registration at the consulate 
of the United States, without in any way recognizing the 
right of the British consul to interfere in the transaction. 
His deed was examined, sealed, and registered, apparently 
without question ; and the matter of the 'concession' to the 
use of the British merchants exclusively seemed to have 
received a practical solution, consistent with the rights and 
claims of the citizens of the United States. But without 
the knowledge of the United States consul the taotai had 
submitted the deeds of Mr. Griswold to the British consul 
for his approval. 

In the spring of 1852, Mr. Roundy, an American citizen, 
purchased land within the British concession, and Mr. 
Cunningham, the vice-consul of the United States, sent in 
the conveyance to be examined and sealed by the taotai 
and returned for registration at the consulate of the United 
States. The official informed the vice-consul that the deed 
must be submitted to Her Britannic Majesty's consul, and 
must be registered in his office. This the vice-consul 
promptly and firmly refused to do; and thereupon threat- 
ened the taotai that if he did not perform his duty within 
forty-eight hours communications between the authorities 

*This passage between Davis and Sen, in which the representative of the 
American Government is seen to be urging the Chinese Viceroy, with indifferent 
success, to enforce_the rights of China under the treaty, is illustrative of the 
anomolous situation created by the fact that the management of the foreign 
affairs of the Chinese Empire were entrusted to a viceroy who was stationed at 
Canton, Sen was little interested in what happened at Shanghai, 



SETTLEMENT OF THE SHANGHAI LAND QUESTION 201 

of the United States and China at Shanghai would be 
closed. The taotai returned the deeds with the seals prop- 
erly affixed (March 16). 

The same day Cunningham issued a proclamation to 
the American residents of Shanghai drawing their attention 
to the fact that purchases of land within Shanghai or its 
neighborhood could be effected according to the terms of 
the treaty with the Chinese officers through the American 
consulate without the intervention in any manner of any 
other foreign consul. The right had been uniformly main- 
tained by the United States authorities, stated the consul, 
and in the correspondence just closed had been fully ac- 
knowledged by the taotai.'^ 

By this very energetic action the question was disposed 
of so far as the Chinese Government was concerned. A 
week later, Consul Alcock, March 23, 1852, in a private 
letter to Cunningham wrote very gracefully with reference 
to the proclamation: 

"I am glad of an opportunity of saying that I by no means con- 
demn your circular, though it must give rise to some difficulty in 
readjusting the terms of a joint location of foreigners recognizing no 
common law, authority, or jurisdiction. 

"I should consider myself very unvporthy of the trust confided to 
me as the representative of the British Government here, if I desired 
any exclusive advantage to the prejudice of any foreigner, and still 
less of an American citizen." 

Nevertheless the British consul felt it to be his duty 
to enter an official protest to the proclamation of Cunning- 
ham in which the British claims were repudiated. This 
protest, with the explanatory papers was referred to the 
British minister at Hongkong, and by him it was referred 
to the Foreign Office. This question reached London for 
settlement at the time when the Perry expedition was on 
its way to Japan and American influence in the Far East 
was becoming a factor in international affairs. The clouds 
which foreshadowed the approach of the Crimean War were 
already gathering over Europe and the American people 
inclined to friendliness with Russia. Great Britain could 



202 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

not well afford to add fuel to the fires which had been 
kindled in Oregon and in Nicaragua a few years before 
where the Americans had sometimes assumed a very bel- 
ligerent attitude. How much these considerations weighed 
in the decision it is impossible to say, but at any rate the 
Foreign Office decided to recognize the American contention 
at Shanghai. 

The Municipal Code 

The following May (1853), Consul Alcock advised Cun- 
ningham that "Her Majesty's Government have no desire 
whatever to assert either exclusive right or jurisdiction over 
the unappropriated land." Alcock thereupon submitted a 
draft code of municipal regulations which, if accepted 
jointly by the consuls and the taotai and then approved 
by the home governments of the treaty powers, would have 
the effect of converting the grant originally made to Cap- 
tain Balfour into a grant for the use of all foreigners under 
the joint control and supervision of the consuls and the 
taotai. 

This draft code was immediately submitted to U. S. 
Commissioner Marshall who suggested a number of amend- 
ments which were incorporated. He objected to the pro- 
vision that the British consulate site, a tract of about thirty 
acres, should be exempt from taxation, and in the final 
draft of the regulations it was provided that "any land here- 
after acquired by the governments of France and the United 
States of America" were to be exempted from the regula- 
tions, but that all such lands, the British included, would 
"bear their share of the public burdens." 

Marshall also objected to the provision which required 
the intervention of the consul in the transfer of land from 
one foreigner to another, and he found the stipulation 
that a Chinese proprietor might be compelled to part with 
his land at a price to be fixed by the consul and the taotai 
to be 'subversive of justice.' In one other respect he pro- 
posed to curb the power of the consuls by lodging the 



SETTLEMENT OF THE SHANGHAI LAND QUESTION 203 

authority to determine the extension of roads, the building 
of wharves, etc., in a committee appointed by the tax- 
payers. 

In some respects the most notable change suggested by 
Marshall, the more remarkable because he was a South- 
erner and might have been expected to possess some color 
prejudices, was in the provision which would have excluded 
the Chinese from living within the bounds of the foreign 
settlement. This regulation he believed to be "wholly ob- 
jectionable as creating invidious distinctions against the 
Chinese, and exercising exactly the spirit of exclusiveness 
towards them which we now complain of when exercised 
towards ourselves. It cannot be sound policy to segregate 
the populations, and instead of prohibiting the settlement 
of Chinese among the foreigners, it should be invited. , . . 
Prejudices will only give way before long-continued pleas- 
ant social intercourse, and I anticipate great effect to be 
produced by inviting the Chinese gentlemen to live among 
the Americans and the English." The regulations as finally 
adopted did not exclude the Chinese, merely specifying very 
carefully the kind of houses which could be erected, with a 
view to safeguarding the settlement from nuisances. While 
the admission of the Chinese to the settlement in years to 
come did not always add to the comfort of the foreigners, 
it cannot be denied that the city thus created and governed 
exercised a profound influence on China, just as the Ameri- 
can commissioner predicted. 

The most significant feature of the proposed regulations 
was the definite and repeated acknowledgment of Chinese 
sovereign rights to the land. The Chinese Government was 
to receive a small annual tax, and deeds were to be sealed by 
the Chinese authorities. While the foreigners were to be 
permitted to form a municipal government of their own, the 
source of the authority by which this was to be accomplished 
was the Chinese Government. The rights of China as well 
as of the foreigners were protected. 

The importance of this question to American interests 
on the China coast was considered by Commissioner Mar- 



204 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

shall to be very great politically as well as commercially. 
He pointed out to Secretary of State Marcy: 

"It may be considered a matter of importance to tlie government, 
as connected with the future relations of Shanghai with the Western 
terminus of a Pacific railroad; for I have no hind of a doubt that 
Shanghai is destined to become the greatest city of Eastern Asia, 
and most intimately of all connected with America. These regula- 
tions will have a direct effect upon her future fortunes." 

Final Settlement of a Vexed Question 

The final settlement of the land question and the incep- 
tion of a municipal government along the lines which had 
been approved by the Chinese authorities and the several 
governments concerned was reported to Secretary of State 
Marcy by Commissioner McLane in July of the following 
year.^ 

"This system," wrote McLane, "is now in full operation, and it is 
respected by all. I think it has the necessary strength to command 
that respect when, from any cause, it may cease to be voluntarily 
rendered. . . . 

"These arrangements are of a very comprehensive character, 
securing the peace and tranquillity of the foreign settlement at 
Shanghai, and the lives, property and commercial privileges of our 
people; while they render it impossible for any foreign power to 
obtain an undue ascendancy. 

"The land regulations, signed by the ministers of the three treaty 
powers, renounce the pretensions heretofore set up by Great Britain 
and France to the exclusive enjoyment of certain concessions made to 
them respectively by the local authorities of China, and all foreigners 
under the jurisdiction of their respective consuls enjoy the same 
privileges; the concurrent and joint action of the consuls and the 
local authorities of China having established a fundamental basis 
on which the rights and privileges of all are firmly planted." 

While the Shanghai land question has been treated here 
as though it were an isolated episode in the international 
relations of China, the full significance of it, both as related 
to the relations of China with the powers and also to the 
development of American policy in the Empire can only be 
appreciated when it is remembered that the final settlement 
of the question was being undertaken at the time when there 
were also up for discussion two other matters of the highest 



SETTLEMENT OF THE SHANGHAI LAND QUESTION 205 

importance; the question of the recognition of the Taiping 
rebels, and, the question of the payment of duties at Shang- 
hai after the capture of the city by the rebels, — a situation 
which resulted in the establishment of the foreign inspector- 
ate of the Chinese maritime customs. 

BIBLIOGEAPHICAL NOTES 

1. The most extended and coherent account of the early history of 

the Shanghai land question is to be found in the Marshall 
Correspondence. H. Doc. 123:33-1, Dispatch No. 23, July 26, 
1853. Unless otherwise noted, this document is followed in 
the ensuing narrative. See also Historic Shanghai, by C. A. 
Montalto de Jesus, pp. 38-43. 

2. Chinese Eepository, June, 1849, p. 332. 

3. China Dispatches, Vol. 4. 

4. China Dispatches, Vol. 5, Davis to Secy, of State, May 21, 1849. 

5. Morse, Vol. 1, p. 349. 

6. Chinese Eepository, June, 1849. 

7. Morse, Vol. 1, p. 349. 

8. McLane Correspondence, S. Ex. Doc. 22 :35-2, p. 123. 



CHAPTER XI 

HUMPHKEY MAESHALL AND THE TAIPING EEBELLION 

The personal character of so much of the American 
policy in Asia is well illustrated in the case of Humphrey 
Marshall. Marshall had been chosen for the post only after 
it had been formally offered to three others and informally 
proposed to even more and by all declined. He was not 
admirably fitted for the duties of diplomacy; he was auto- 
cratic, dictatorial, pitifully vain, and gifted with singular 
capacities for controversy, yet intellectually he was an able 
man. In those days communication with China was so slow 
that the commissioner could never hope to receive precise 
instructions, and Marshall, because of the ignorance of 
Washington as to the rapid turn of events, and because the 
Pierce administration was just entering upon office, was left 
largely to his own devices. Yet it happened that his term of 
service coincided with what must be regarded as one of the 
two or three most critical years of the last century in the 
history of China. It fell therefore to the lot of Marshall, 
uninstructed, unaided, and even unappreciated, to make a 
most important contribution to American policy. To Mar- 
shall the United States owed the discovery of the truth that 
the weakness, or dissolution, of China, was a matter of na- 
tional concern to the United States, and that the true policy 
of the American Government must be to strengthen and sus- 
tain the Chinese Government against either internal dis- 
order or foreign aggression. 

In 1853 the Gushing policy to consign American inter- 
ests to the protection of China as a sovereign power was in 
immanent danger of shipwreck, due to the fact that the 
Government of China was threatened with dissolution in 
the Taiping Rebellion. Boldly, alone, in the face of con- 

206 



HUMPHREY MARSHALL AND TAIPING REBELLION 207 

trary instructions and popular opinion, Marshall laid down 
the second plank in the platform of American policy — ''the 
highest interests of the United States are involved in sus- 
taining China." 

The Taiping Rebellion must be reckoned as one of the 
most important wars of the nineteenth century when meas- 
ured by the number of people whose destinies were involved, 
the loss of life — S. Wells Williams gave the estimate that 
fully 20,000,000 lives were destroyed ^ — and by the princi- 
ples of action adopted by the foreign powers. The success 
of the Taipings would have meant the destruction of the 
Manchu Government and the separation of the great empire 
into parts. The break-up of the empire in the middle of 
the last century could have resulted within a few years in 
nothing short of the dismemberment of China by foreign 
powers. 

Growth of the Rebellion 

Like other popular revolutionary movements, the rebel- 
lion grew out of the political, economic and social condi- 
tions of the day. There was increasing corruption in and 
consequent increasing hatred of the Manchu Government. 
Its defeat in the Anglo-Chinese War had proved the Impe- 
rial power to be a hollow sham, unable to repel the foreigner, 
unable to stop the opium trade, impotent also to control its 
own soldiery. The advance of the foreign trader and mis- 
sionary within the empire had been accompanied by dis- 
integrating influences upon the old religions and customs. 
China was ripe for revolution, the fuel piled high awaiting 
only the torch in the hand of some aggressive, popular and 
able leader. That leader proved to be Hung-Siu-tshuen, a 
native of a village thirty miles from Canton, who had moved 
to the Province of Kwangsi to become a school teacher. 

Hung-Siu-tshuen was a four-times disappointed aspirant 
at the triennial examinations at Canton. In 1829, at the 
age of sixteen, and then successively in 1833, 1837, and 
1843 he had come down to the provincial city from his 
village where his record as a scholar had been exceptional, 



208 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

only to fail in the higher examinations. He was defeated, 
so he believed, by corrupt officials. But Hung was more 
than a defeated candidate ; he was a pathological case such 
as one would not be surprised to find in India, but in stoical, 
common-sense China, is most unusual — a sort of Chinese 
Mahomet, or Mad Mullah. After his third attempt at the 
examinations he returned home in great depression of spirit 
and sank into a delirious illness which is reported to have 
lasted forty days. During this brief period, though never 
subsequently so far as is known, he became subject to 
cataleptic fits, and in his deliriums had visions of a more or 
less religious nature.^ 

While at Canton in 1837 he had purchased some tracts — 
"Good Words to Exhort the Age" — from Liang A-fah, their 
author, a colporteur of the London Missionary Society. 
These tracts "consisted of sixty-eight short chapters upon 
common topics, selected from the Bible." He took them 
home but when he discovered that they advocated Chris- 
tianity, he put them aside as teaching a forbidden subject. 
Ten years later, upon the recommendation of his brother- 
in-law, he read them and thought that he found in their 
pages a clue to the meaning of the visions which had come 
to him in his illness. He accepted the doctrine, added to it 
as necessary to support his fanatical fancies, announced 
himself as the brother of Jesus Christ, interpreted the phrase 
Kingdom of God to mean China, proclaimed his mission and 
began to exhort people to adopt Christianity as he under- 
stood and construed it with the meagre assistance of Liang 
A-fah's tracts. The next year in company with some dis- 
ciples, he went to the mountains of eastern Kwangsi, and 
two years later, having heard of the Rev. Issachar J. 
Roberts, an American Baptist missionary at Canton, he left 
disciples in charge of the preaching, and journeyed to Can- 
ton to enroll himself as a pupil of Roberts. 

Roberts ^ appears in the early records of American mis- 
sionary work in Canton as an extremely aggressive, and 
somewhat uncouth southerner, who labored with fanatical 
zeal. The extent of his influence on Hung may not have 



HUMPHREY MARSHALL AND TAIPING REBELLION 209 

been very great, for the latter remained with him only two 
months, not long enough to win Roberts' confidence to the 
point where the missionary was willing to receive him into 
the church, and yet Hung seems to have remembered Rob- 
erts with respect for in 1853, when the Taipings were estab- 
lished in Nanking, he sent for his old teacher to come to 
Nanking ''to assist in establishing the truth." Roberts was 
unable to accept this invitation, perhaps because the Ameri- 
can commissioner sternly forbade it,* and because of the 
difficulty in reaching the Taiping capital. But soon after 
1860 Roberts spent fifteen months at Nanking where he 
lived, invested with yellow robes and a crown, in a house 
suitably furnished and provided by the Taiping emperor. 

The course of the rebellion from the return of Hung 
from his visit to Roberts in 1846, can be sketched here only 
briefly. At first it amounted only to a religious movement, / 
the establishment of "Associations for Worshipping God," 
in the villages of Kwangsi. These associations were re- 
garded as treasonable, since only the emperor could worship 
God. Hung, however, proved a popular leader, drew about 
him some able lieutenants, and as the movement grew in 
popularity, and as the opposition of the government in- 
creased, it took on more and more the dimensions of a 
political and military as well as religious campaign. Its 
cardinal purpose became the expulsion of the Manchus. 
Its military successes were due to its able leadership, its / 
fanatical enthusiasm, rigid discipline, and to the rottenness 
of Peking military affairs. ' 

Sweeping up over the mountains north of Kwangsi into 
Hunan and Kiangsi, gathering the discontented and des- 
perate as the successful armies passed by, the Taipings 
reached the Yangtze at the end of 1852, and, traveling down 
the river, captured Nanking in March, 1853. By this time 
Hung seems fully to have realized the strength which his 
religious vagaries could lend to his political ambitions, and 
the orders handed down to his subordinates were now issued 
in the form of 'revelations.' The Taipings crossed the 
Yangtze and marched northward towards Peking, reaching 



210 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

a place only twenty miles from Tientsin, and also spread- 
ing westward through the adjoining provinces. But they 
were soon forced to retire, not so much because of defeats 
suffered as because of over-extended lines, too far removed 
from the base which had been established on the Yangtze. 
At Nanking, Hung was proclaimed by his army Emperor 
of the Tai (Great) Ping (Peace) Chao (Dynasty) — hence 
the term Taiping, which the Europeans adopted for the 
rebellion — and settled down to perfect his organization and 
court, the master of almost the entire Yangtze Valley from 
below Nanking westward six hundred miles to Ichang. 

The Dilemma Presented to the Foreigners 

The phenomenal success of the rebels, and the quasi- 
Christian character of the movement began to draw the 
attention of the world. The Roman Catholic missionaries, 
whose influence in France was paramount, were always 
opposed to the rebels because of their iconoclastic practices 
and their Protestant doctrines, but the Protestant mission- 
aries, for the most part, hailed the movement with enthusi- 
asm, believing that they saw returning to them the bread 
which they had for years been casting on the waters. The 
glowing accounts of the rebellion which reached England 
and America through missionary channels created a strong 
public sentiment in favor of the Taipings. By many they 
were looked upon as a rising Christian power in the pagan 
East destined to become the providential agency in the 
conversion of Asia. The movement attracted the interest, 
also, of the foreign governments and of the foreigners in 
China engaged in trade.^ 

The relation between the foreign powers and the Chinese 
Government was rapidly reaching a critical stage in 1853 
when the Taipings were in the flood-tide of their first 
successes. The grievances of the foreigners were, briefly: 
(1) The mercantile community, especially the English, was 
thoroughly discontented with the commercial privileges of 
the treaties. Hongkong, as a commercial center, had been 



HUMPHREY MARSHALL AND TAIPING REBELLION 211 

an indifferent success. Amoy, Foochow and Ningpo had 
been disappointments. There was a general feeling that 
nothing less than the complete opening of China to foreign 
trade would be satisfactory. (2) The failure to secure the 
legalization of the opium trade was irritating to those en- 
gaged in it, casting over them the evil reputation of smug- 
glers although the trade was openly connived at by the 
Chinese ofl&cials. (3) The Chinese had been able, while 
keeping the letter of the treaty to render nugatory many 
of its provisions both as to trade and diplomatic intercourse. 
The city of Canton remained implacable, its gates closed, its 
populace sullen and insulting, its governor general who was 
also the viceroy delegated to conduct the foreign relations 
of the Empire, incommunicado so far as the foreign min- 
isters were concerned. Viceroy Yeh, acting under orders 
from Peking as was afterwards revealed, absolutely refused 
to hold personal interviews with the ministers. (4) The 
reign of the new Empqrer who had ascended the throne in 
1850 was seen to be marked by a pronounced anti-foreign 
feeling. (5) The Chinese Government had shown a dis- 
position to evade the settlement of claims due to infractions 
of the treaty and to lack of protection offered to foreigners. 

Both the Americans and the English were, by 1853, 
agreed that the treaties of 1842-4 must be revised. Not- 
withstanding differences of opinion in matters of detail the 
foreigners were being drawn together by the obvious fact 
that the Chinese had no intention whatever, except under 
strong compulsion, of revising the treaties at all, much less 
of making large concessions to either the governments or 
the commercial interests. 

To this list of general grievances were added in 1853 the 
disturbances of trade at Canton and Shanghai arising from 
the disorders of the Rebellion. The Imperial Government 
was showing itself to be utterly unable to maintain order, 
and this fact was brought home to the foreigners with 
peculiar force when, September 7, 1853, Shanghai itself was 
wrested from the imperial control by a band of rebels. For 
months the question had been arising whether, in the face 



212 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

of these facts, it would not be the part of wisdom for the 
foreign powers to turn to the Taipings, recognize them, give 
them the necessary support in return for guarantees of 
friendly treatment thereafter, and seize the opportunity to 
do away with the troublesome Manchu dynasty. 

"I hope Tien-Teh" (the rebel chief), wrote a member of 
the house of Russell and Company at Shanghai to Hum- 
phrey Marshall March 13, 1853,^ "will be successful and 
upset the present dynasty. We cannot be worse off ; and he 
is said to be a liberal man." This expression is fairly 
characteristic of the prevailing public sentiment although 
some of the conservatives were more hesitant. The North 
American Review carried an article (July, 1854, p. 199) on 
the rebellion in which the advantages to foreigners of a 
breaking up of China were pointed out in the following 
paragraph : 

''Unwittingly to himself [Tien-Teh] perhaps, he will teach us 
where to introduce the wedge, where to rest the lever; and it will not 
be many years ere we find European influence, hitherto so powerless 
in the high exclusive walls of the palace of Peking, operating with 
wonderful force at the courts of a score of kingdoms, petty in com- 
parison with the great aggregate of which they once formed a part, 
and all jealous of, if not divided against, each other." 

President Pierce in his annual message December 5, 
1853, appears to have had such a hope. He said: 

''The condition of China at this time renders it probable that some 
important changes will occur in that vast Empire which will lead to 
a more unrestricted intercourse with it. The commissioner to that 
country who has been recently appointed is instructed to avail himself 
of all occasions to open and extend our commercial relations, not only 
with the Empire of China, but with other Asiatic nations." ' 

It was very generally believed that, quite aside from the 
fact of whether the rebellion would be a benefit, its success 
was assured. "I think I may safely say," wrote Marshall to 
the Secretary of State, April 28, 1853, "that from all I can 
learn the Government of China is fully employed by the 
rebels, and that any day may bring forth the fruits of suc- 
cessful revolution, in the utter overthrow of the existing 
dynasty." ^ Five weeks later he addressed to the Secretary 



HUMPHREY MARSHALL AND TAIPING REBELLION 213 

of State a request for specific instructions as to the policy to 
be pursued in case the further success of the rebels raised the 
question as to whom the customs dues should be paid. This 
inquiry was especially pertinent in view of the fact that it 
was the policy of the Government of the United States to 
recognize de facto governments.^ 

Washington was entirely without information such as 
would enable the government to issue specific instructions to 
Marshall. The favorable opportunity offered by the rebel- 
lion for the foreign powers to advance their interests was 
pointed out to the Department of State by the British min- 
ister, and its obvious yet superficial advantages were recog- 
nized. That was the 'heydey of the filibuster' in American 
foreign policy, characterized by no fine moral distinctions or 
sense of duty towards weak yet sovereign states, but China 
was too far away for American filibustering. The British 
desired American cooperation in the Far East, but President 
Pierce and Secretary of State Marcy were wary. In June, 
1853, Marcy wrote to Marshall that he had been apprised 
that Great Britain intended to avail itself of the present con- 
ditions in China to obtain 'increased facilities of intercourse,' 
not exclusively for its own subjects, but for all nations. It 
had been suggested that the Government of the United 
States send to its commissioner such instructions as would 
'^empower him to take such a course in conjunction with 
H. M. Plenipotentiary as will be calculated to turn to the 
best account the opportunity offered by the present crisis to 
open the Chinese Empire generally to the commercial enter- 
prise of all the civilized nations of the world." 

"The end proposed commends itself to the approval of 
che President," wrote Marcy, who requested Marshall to do 
what he could in that direction, remembering that the treaty 
stipulations must be respected and the settled American 
policy of non-interference in the contests which arise be- 
tween the people and their rulers must be observed. Marcy 
suggested that without departure from these rules of con- 
duct it might be possible to do much in such a crises "as does 
or may exist in China to cause an abandonment of the 



214 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

unwise restrictions imposed by China upon foreign inter- 
course." However, without knowing what course the British 
authorities might deem it expedient to take in furtherance 
of the object in view, the President "does not enjoin upon 
you cooperation but only cordial relations and free confer- 
ence with them."^*' 

Marshall received no further instructions on the subject 
but the opportunist policy of Marcy may be judged from the 
instructions to McLane, the newly appointed commissioner. 
McLane was vested Svith large discretionary powers' be- 
cause of the disturbance of the Taiping Rebellion, If China 
should be divided and several governments organized, 
McLane was to present himself to each as the diplomatic 
representative of the United States and make such treaties 
as he thought wise.^^ 

Marshall Becomes Suspicious of British Designs 

The policy of the British Government which had been 
vaguely outlined to Marcy by the British minister in Wash- 
ington assumed in China what appeared to Marshall to be 
sinister aspects. On May 30 he reported to Marcy: ^^ 

"The British minister has been to Nanking. His interpreter has 
revisited it since the departure of Sir George Bonham for Honkong. 
He goes to find out 'what the rebels are about,' and his intercourse 
with their camp and their princes has served to awaken in his bosom 
the warmest sympathy in their cause! The long articles in the late 
numbers of the North China Herald are attributed to Mr. Meadow's 
pen. His position in the legation of Great Britain, his fluency in 
speaking and writing the Chinese language, lend every opportunity 
of assuming the protectorate of the young power to Great Britain, at 
least so far as to mould its first steps to suit the policy of that govern- 
ment. The vigilance of England will be nothing strange to commu- 
nicate to the Secretary of State. The apprehension I have is, that 
Great Britain may obtain the opening of a western Chinese port 
(inland) from the new Emperor at Nanking, and the right to navigate 
the Yangtse Kiang closed to foreign commerce beyond the existing 
port of entry. I do not doubt that with that view her war with 
Burmah has been waged and her Indian Empire extended. The 
portage from the Irrawaddy to the Yangtse Kiang is very short [sic] . 
I suggest these considerations to you frankly, because they seem to 
me to point out the propriety of preparation to assume the part the 



HUMPHREY MARSHALL AND TAIPING REBELLION 215 

United States may find it politic to take in face of an event now so 
likely as the dismemberment of the empire." 

Six weeks later rumor had it that the Chinese Govern- 
ment had asked for assistance,* and that the Czar of Russia 
had already promised the necessary aid. 

"Her assistance," wrote Marshall, "would probably end in passing 
China under a Eussian protectorate, and in the extension of Russian 
limits to the Hoangho, or the mouth of the Yangtse; or, it may be, 
when circumstances and policy shall favor the scheme, in the parti- 
tion of China between Great Britain and Russia. The interference 
of the Czar would readily suppress the rebellion, by driving the rebels 
from the great highways of commerce, and from the occupation of 
the towns on the seaboard. Whatever might be the ultimate com- 
pensation demanded by Russia for this timely service, China could 
not resist its collection." ^* 

Marshall then went on to say, with a wisdom which 
stood the test of time : 

"I think that almost any sacrifice should be made by the United 
States to keep Russia from spreading her Pacific bovindary, and to 
avoid her coming directly to interference in Chinese domestic affairs ; 
for China is like a lamb before the shearers, as easy a conquest as were 
the provinces of India. Whenever the avarice or the ambition of 
Russia or Great Britain shall tempt them to make the prizes, the fate 
of Asia will be sealed, and the future Chinese relations with the 
United States may be considered as closed for ages, unless now the 
United States shall foil the untoward result by adopting a sound 
policy." 

The Commissioner adds a concluding sentence which 
may be taken as his summary of what he conceived to be 
the true American policy in the Far East. 

"It is ray opinion that the highest interests of the United States 
are involved in sustaining China — maintaining order here, and gradu- 
ally engrafting on this worn-out stock the healthy principles which 
give life and health to governments, rather than to see China become 
the theatre of widespread anarchy, and ultimately the prey of Euro- 
pean ambition." 

While Marshall did not again allude to the dangers of 
Russian aggression, his fears possibly having been aroused 

*0n May 6, 1853, Commodore Perry was asked by the Shanghai officials to 
assist in the suppression of the rebellion.^' 



216 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

by a false rumor, he immediately began to turn his atten- 
tion to measures which would thwart any sinister designs 
which might be entertained by England. His course was 
clear. In the face of the prevailing sympathy for the Tai- 
pings, a sympathy which reached even from the United 
States and which prompted severe criticism of him when his 
policy became known, and in the face of contrary instruc- 
tions from his government, Marshall set himself to do every- 
thing he possibly could to support the Imperial Govern- 
ment. For the moment this was not much. He had quar- 
relled with Commodore Perry who was then wholly preoccu- 
pied with his expedition to Japan, and Perry had withdrawn 
from all cooperation with him. The capture of Shanghai by 
rebel bands on the 7th of September, however, precipitated a 
situation in which Marshall proceeded to apply his policy of 
upholding the Imperial authority with all the limited means 
at his disposal. The action of the Britjfeh authorities in the 
weeks immediately following the fall of the city seemed to 
Marshall to confirm his fears. We are thus led to a consid- 
eration of the different policies of the American and the 
English authorities after the fall of Shanghai both in the 
payment of the customs dues and in the protection of the 
foreign settlement. 

The walled city of Shanghai came into the possession of 
a band of rebels, who professed more or less close connec- 
tion with the Taipings, on the 7th of September, 1853. The 
customs house which was in the foreign settlement was 
attacked by the rabble who took advantage of the disorder 
to loot. That evening the British authorities, declaring that 
a condition of anarchy existed, placed a guard over the cus- 
toms house, and also at the bridges over the Yang King 
Pang, the creek which flowed between the walled city and 
the foreign settlement. In the placing of these guards the 
Americans were not consulted. 

The flight of the ofiicers of the Imperial Customs from 
their post of duty immediately created the question of 
whether the foreigners ought to be expected to continue to 
pay customs dues, and if they were to pay them, how and 



HUMPHREY MARSHALL AND TAIPING REBELLION 217 

to whom they could be paid. Upon these points there was 
at once a difference of opinion. Merchants argued that as 
the Imperial Government was no longer discharging its 
obligation to protect them, and was not even supplying 
customs officials to receive the dues, they ought to be re- 
lieved of the obligation of paying. Others, among whom 
Marshall was most conspicuous, argued that the foreigners 
were by no means relieved of such an obligation, and that 
if, through the failure of the Imperial Government to pro- 
tect them, any foreigners suffered loss, the treaty provided 
that the foreigners might make claims for the losses sus- 
tained, and collect from the government. If on the other 
hand, the foreigners repudiated the Imperial Government 
by refusing to pay the duties, Marshall argued that certainly 
they would have no grounds for claims against the gov- 
ernment. 

The day following the fall of the city Mr. Rutherford 
Alcock and Mr. Edward Cunningham, the British consul 
and American vice consul, held a conference and agreed to 
issue orders to their nationals, respectively, stating that 
during the absence of the Imperial customs officers, they, 
the consuls, would collect the duties for the Imperial Gov- 
ernment, according to the treaties. There was, however, a 
difference between the methods to be employed. The Eng- 
lish consul required only that the merchants deposit at the 
consulate promissory notes which were to be held, pending 
the decision of the Foreign Office in London, as to whether 
the British merchants were actually to redeem the notes. 
It was freely predicted that the Foreign Office would decide 
against the Chinese Government and that the notes would 
be returned, as in fact they were, a year later. The Ameri- 
cans on the other hand were ordered to pay their duties at 
the consulate in specie. The American merchants, by the 
decree of the American consul, who was firmly supported 
by the American Commissioner, were thus placed under a 
severe handicap with reference to their British competitors. 
The one paid duties in notes of doubtful value; the other 
paid in cash. A still further element of confusion was in- 



218 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

jected into the situation by the fact that the merchants 
of nations unrepresented by consuls in Shanghai, recognized 
no obligations whatever to pay the duties when there were 
no officers to collect them. In fact the very day that Alcock 
and Cunningham issued their orders, the Prussian ship 
Adler departed, merely recording a simple guarantee that 
the duties would be paid in case they were required at some 
future date — very different from a promissory note, and 
wholly different from cash payments. Subsequently other 
ships of nations unrepresented by consuls departed without 
even a promise to pay. 

The British authorities then took the position that the 
Imperial authorities should not be permitted to resume the 
collection of the customs until the Imperial authorities had 
retaken the walled city. However, the British authorities 
had also declared that the foreign settlement must remain 
in strict neutrality in the conflict between the rebels and 
the Imperialists, and that no troops, not even Imperial 
troops, should be permitted to enter the foreign settlement. 
At the same time the foreigners in the settlement were 
known to be not merely openly sympathizing with the 
rebels in the city, but also to be supplying them with am- 
munition. Marshall, on the other hand, recognized the 
establishment of a new imperial customs house although it 
proved to be only some old junks moored in the river below 
the foreign settlement. 

The Americans again protested against the unequal 
burdens placed upon them by Marshall's decisions, but Mar- 
shall stubbornly refused to yield, asserting that the treaty 
was still in force, and that if they suffered losses the Chinese 
Government would be liable for damages. 

Probably realizing that sooner or later an explanation to 
the State Department would be required for this ruling 
which was so ruinous to American merchants, Marshall 
made his reasons the subject of a long dispatch.^ ^ The 
American Commissioner's controlling motive was to thwart 
what appeared to him to be the aggressive designs of Great 
Britain. 



HUMPHREY MARSHALL AND TAIPING REBELLION 219 

"I believe that were Great Britain assured," he wrote, "that the 
United States would not interfere in behalf of China, she would seize 
and hold this city permanently, and thus command the valley of the 
Yangtse — the richest probably in the world. I believe she will yet 
do it, unless she shall be advised that such usurpation would provoke 
resistance on the part of the United States, to whom such a coup 
d'etat would be a national calamity." 

In support of this conviction Marshall submitted some 
facts in addition to those which have already been enu- 
merated. The British Government, he maintained, with the 
cooperation of the French, were at that moment exercising 
the rights of sovereignty on Chinese territory, and without 
sufl&cient excuse or reason. Not only was the foreign settle- 
ment being guarded by their marines at a time when a guard 
seemed to him so unnecessary that he had requested no aid 
from the American naval force then in the harbor, but they 
had actually halted the Imperial commander-in-chief as he 
came into the settlement to pay his respects to the foreign 
authorities. Twice a Chinese customs boat had been driven 
from the anchorage in front of the foreign settlement by 
British men-of-war. Recently British H. M. S. Hermes at 
Amoy had 'drifted' in between the vessels of the Imperials 
and the rebel forces during an engagement at a time when 
the Imperialists seemed to be on the point of victory. He 
also had observed that British subjects were in communica- 
tion with the rebel forces at Nanking. Recently a British 
subject, bearing a letter from the Taiping authorities in 
Nanking, when arrested by the Imperial troops as a spy and 
returned to the British consul for punishment, had been dis- 
missed under the purely nominal bail of $200. 

"These examples," wrote Marshall, "of incidents daily occurring in 
China will serve to place you in possession of the tendency of affairs 
in China, and to prove that, though neutrality may be the profession 
of Great Britain, and the aim of the Foreign Office, the practice of 
the public authorities among the Chinese leads to the conclusion that 
there is another policy in view." 

Whatever may have been the truth of Marshall's allega- 
tions as to the intent of the British authorities in China in 
1853, the American policy as actually applied was twofold : 



220 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

immediately, to support the Imperial authority; and, to 
continue to recognize the sovereignty of China; and to do 
this for the ultimate purpose of helping China to maintain 
her integrity — to prevent the dismemberment which seemed 
so probable in event of the success of the rebellion. The 
practical application of Marshall's policy is to be seen in his 
handling of the Shanghai customs question. 

Shall Shanghai Become a Free Port? 

The issue was this: Should the port of Shanghai, dur- 
ing the occupation of the city by rebels and the absence of 
not only Imperial customs officers but also of Imperial 
military protection, be considered a free port? In other 
words was the port of Shanghai to become, at least for the 
time being, a port such as Hongkong had always been under 
the British administration? Favoring an affirmative answer 
to this question were the mercantile communities regardless 
of nationality, while the British consul, Mr. Rutherford 
Alcock, not caring to assume the responsibility, referred the 
matter to the Foreign Office, meanwhile accepting, as al- 
ready described, qualified promissory notes from British 
merchants in payment of customs dues. This action, while 
not definitely declaring the port open, so far as British mer- 
chants were concerned did in effect leave the port open, and 
yet in such a way that the British treaties were not violated. 
Against this plan of an open port was the American author- 
ity as represented in the proclamation of the consul, sup- 
ported by the approval of the commissioner.* 

In the face of the repeated protest of the American mer- 
chants Marshall held his ground. Replying to a second pro- 
test of October 31, he declared: ^'^ 

"It is my purpose to perform, punctiliously, every obligation 
assumed by the United States under the treaty, and to refrain from 

*The full responsibility for the measures which prevented Shanghai from 
actually becoming a free port after the fall of the city was attributed by the 
leading American firms to Commissioner Marshall. In a letter of protest, signed 
by Smith, King & Co., Wetmore & Co., Augustine Heard & Co., Bull, Nye & Co., 
September 21, these merchants stated the case as follows : "We believe that, in 
the present lapse of legal authority, this port becomes, for the time being, a free 
port; and it certainly would be so to us now but for the presence of the officers 
of our government." '* 



HUMPHREY MARSHALL AND TAIPING REBELLION 221 

embarrassing the public administration of Chinese affairs by throwing 
unnecessary obstacles in the way. No precedent, no example furnished 
by other powers, will induce me to forego the faithful and honest 
execution of our plain international obligations." 



Marshall Forces Dissolution of Provisional System 

Marshall's position, however, became increasingly diffi- 
cult to maintain. The ships of non-treaty powers continued 
to go free. On the 4th of November, Vice-consul Cunning- 
ham at Shanghai addressed a letter to the taotai, pointing 
out that on a certain day two vessels had left the port, one 
American and one Austrian : the former paid duties accord- 
ing to the provisional rules, while the latter departed abso- 
lutely free. Cunningham asserted that such a situation was 
in violation of the most-favored-nation clause in the Treaty 
of Wanghia, and demanded that the Americans be placed on 
the same footing as the subjects of those nations whose ships 
were going free. 

When informed of this action the American Commis- 
sioner, who was then in the South vainly seeking an inter- 
view with Viceroy Yeh, replied, intimating that as it was 
the duty of China to insist on her rights at Shanghai under 
the treaties with England and France and that if, after 
ample opportunity to reestablish control, China continued 
to concede free entry and clearance, or the payment of dues 
in promissory notes the redemption of which depended upon 
the will of the British Government, then the American 
Government would demand as a right under the treaty that 
American ships also go free. Meanwhile Viceroy Yeh 
seemed in ^no way to appreciate the battle which Marshall 
had undertaken at Shanghai in defense of the Imperial 
revenues, and Marshall became convinced that the bold 
policy which he had adopted in September was not bold 
enough. It had not brought the other foreign nations into 
line, and it had placed upon the American merchants an 
insuperable handicap. Therefore on the 4th of January, 
1854, he addressed an authorization to Vice-consul Cun- 
ningham to change his policy immediately and "to clear 



222 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

American ships without taking any note of the duties what- 
ever, without requiring any port clearance, and in all re- 
spect treating Shanghai as a free port." In conclusion Mar- 
shall wrote: ^^ 

"I congratulate you that, by the strict pursuit of our national 
duty, we are in a position, without violating a treaty stipulation or 
giving just offense in any quarter, to assert all our national rights and 
to maintain the commerce of the United States on the footing of the 
most-favored nation, without loss from any unjust discrimination 
being possible, under any regulation whatever, made or to be made 
by others." 

The purpose of the American Commissioner was two- 
fold: to help the American merchants out of what was be- 
coming an impossible situation ; and to force the hand of the 
British authorities, for under the new order it was the Brit- 
ish commercial interests which were placed under a handi- 
cap; while the American ships went free, the British ships 
were still required to deposit the promissory notes and it 
was not yet definitely known that they would not some day 
become payable. Marshall's policy was successful. 

Marshall was superseded as commissioner when the 
Pierce administration entered office, and he left China on 
March 13, 1854, before the arrival of his successor, Robert 
M. McLane. Meanwhile the confusion at Shanghai had 
become very great and the British plenipotentiary, Sir John 
Bowring, had had a correspondence with the secretary of the 
Shanghai British Chamber of Commerce, in which was to be 
observed a great change in the tone and temper of the 
British authorities. McLane reported : ^^ 

"The undisguised hostility expressed towards the rebels is a new 
feature in the intercourse which has heretofore taken place, either 
between the superior and inferior British authorities themselves, or 
between either of them and the Chinese authorities." 

A month later McLane reported : ^'^ that he had been in 
communication with Sir John Bowring and that the latter 
had expressed the desire to see 'him personally before he 
attempted to open up communications with the Chinese 
Empire, and had expressed the further desire for 'hearty 
cooperation' in the progress of events in China. Notwith- 



HUMPHREY MARSHALL AND TAIPING REBELLION 223 

Standing the sympathy for the rebels which still persisted 
among an ill-informed public in England and America, the 
events in China, and a fuller knowledge of the rebel move- 
ment itself which rapidly degenerated after its establish- 
ment in Nanking, settled effectively the question of the 
recognition of the Taipings. Towards the Taiping Rebel- 
lion the Government of the United States pursued its set- 
tled policy of non-intervention in the affairs of other 
nations. In its instructions to its commissioners it followed 
exactly a policy of neutrality, taking the ground that China 
must settle her own troubles. Applying again the principle 
that China was a sovereign state. Secretary of State Marcy 
advised Dr. Parker in 1855 ^^ that the Government of the 
United States had no right to restrain its citizens from intro- 
ducing munitions of war into the five ports, even when it 
was known that they were intended for the rebels. On the 
other hand American citizens in China who did not remain 
neutral in the conflict, must understand that they forfeited 
all right to the protection of the Government of the United 
States and all right to claims for redress. 

In addition to this both McLane and Parker in their 
effort to secure the appointment of commissioners to dis- 
cuss supplementary articles and the revision of the treaty 
hinted broadly ^" that if the Imperial Government would 
not listen to them, they might turn to the rebels. This, 
however, was a mere threat and the strict neutrality de- 
clared by the American Government was in fact moderated 
by an increased benevolence on the part of the commis- 
sioners towards the Empire. The British policy was similar, 
and as for the French, their dislike of the Taipings had 
always been apparent. 

At the beginning of the administration of President 
Buchanan (1857), Lord Napier, then British Minister at 
Washington, in the course of the conferences between the 
United States and China which preceded the negotiations 
for the revision of the treaties with China, left with Secre- 
tary of State Cass a memorandum on British policy in China 
in which is found an official statement of what had become 



224 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

the British policy with reference to the more fundamental 
questions of the integrity of China. 

Lord Napier wrote : ^ "The dissolution of the Chinese Empire 
and the separation of its provinces cotild not fail to be accompanied 
by the interception of communications, the diminution of wealth, the 
destruction of industry, by all the calamities which check the Powers 
of production and consumption. Such a result would be most preju- 
dicial to Great Britain both in reference to our exportation to China, 
and to our importation of tea, which is at once a source of revenue 
and a necessary of life." 

Thus, more than three quarters of a century ago, the 
two great nations most interested in the trade of China, 
reasoning wholly from the grounds of national self-interest, 
reached the conclusion that the Chinese Empire ought not 
to be dissolved. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

1. Williams: "Middle Kingdom," Vol. 2, p. 624. 

2. Hamberg: "The Visions of Hung-Siu-tshuen." 

3. Cordier: "Histoire des Relations de la Chine," Vol. 1, p. 169; 

China Dispatches, Vol. 3, June 2, 1846; Vol. 5, Eeb. Y, 1849 
(Dept. of State). 

4. Marshall Corres., pp. 183, 185; Brine's Taiping Rebellion, pp. 

295-8. 

5. British Parliamentary Papers, 1870, Vol. LXIX, Corres. re- 

specting Inland Residence of English Missionaries in China, 
p. 10. 

6. Marshall Corres., p. 96. 

7. Richardson's Messages, Vol. 5, p. 210. 

8. Marshall Corres., p. 102. 

9. Hid., p. 168. 

10. China Instructions, June, 1853 (Dept. of State). 

11. McLane Instructions, S. Ex. Doc. 39 :36-l. 

12. Marshall Corres., pp. 168-9. 

13. S. Ex. Doc. 34:33-2, Disp. No. 11, May 6, 1853. 

14. Marshall Corres., p. 204. i 

15. Ihid., p. 290. 

16. Ihid., p. 261. 

17. lUd., p. 313. 

18. Ihid., pp. 366-7. 

19. McLane Corres., p. 3. ■ 

20. Ihid., p. 23. 

21. China Instructions, Vol. 1, Oct. 5, 1855. 

22. McLane Corres., p. 145; Parker Corres., p. 945. 

23. Notes from the British Legation, Vol. 34, Apr. 3, 1857 (Dept. 

of State). 



CHAPTER XII 

THE POLICY or COMMISSIONEE McLANE 

The service of Robert M. McLane as Commissioner to 
China was brief — only nine months long — but important. 
To him belongs the distinction of having devised a settle- 
ment of the vexed question of the Shanghai customs which 
was in line with the ideas of his predecessor whose policy he 
approved, and it also fell to his lot to make some new and 
rather startling adventures in policies of his own. 

His instructions ^ which may be taken as the policy of 
the Pierce administration in China were specific only in the 
fact that they recommended cooperation with the other 
treaty powers. It was a timid cooperation which Marcy 
proposed, quite unlike the 'cooperative policy' of Seward ten 
years later, but it was significant as an indication of the 
turning tide in American foreign policy. The old aloofness, 
and particularly the old hatred and suspicion of Great Brit- 
ain and all her works w as passing. Every year the choice for 
the American and the British governments in the Far East 
between working with or against one another was presenting 
itself. Cooperation seemed the course of wisdom. 

The Inspectorate of Maritime Customs 

In thie settlement of the Shanghai customs question 
McLane immediately assumed leadership. On February 9, 
1854, the British, French and American consuls at Shanghai 
had united in recognizing a new Imperial customs house 
which was established at Soochow Creek, and the collection 
of dues by the Imperial authorities began forthwith. The 
three consuls, at the suggestion of McLane, prepared a full 

225 • 



226 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

report * of the situation as it had developed from September 
7th, for submission to their governments with a view to 
some final settlement.^ 

The situation at Shanghai by no means cleared up with 
the recognition of the reestablished customs house. The 
old Chinese maritime customs service was disintegrating in 
sheer rottenness. The city had not been retaken by the 
Imperial authorities, and the corruption of the ofiicials 
at the customs house was such that merchants were still 
able to evade the payment of duties. To meet this situa- 
tion the taotai notified the consuls, March 25, that by order 
of the governor general, the collection of Shanghai outward 
customs would be transferred to the interior until such 
time as peace was restored. To this order the foreign gov- 
ernments immediately objected as a violation of the treaties. 
R. C. Murphy, the newly arrived American consul, joined 
with the British and French consuls, with the full approval 
of McLane, in a joint communication to the taotai notifying 
him that they would not sanction the change in the manner 
of collecting the outward customs.^ Nevertheless the cus- 
toms house on Soochow Creek was abandoned by the 
Chinese on May 9. Shanghai became completely what it 
had been partially for many months — a free port. Thus the 
Imperial Government was entirely deprived of revenue from 
the port of Shanghai at a time when the empire was in the 
throes of rebellion, when the Imperial coffers were sadly 
depleted, and the dynasty was in the utmost danger of dis- 
solution. 

Meanwhile it had become clear that it was for the best 
interests of the foreigners, in the choice between the rebels 
and the Imperialists, to support and fortify the latter. The 
most obvious step which could be taken, in the interest of 
protecting the Imperial revenues, and also for the sake of 

♦Throughout Michie's account of the Shanghai customs question (The Eng- 
lishman in China), he gives Rutherford Alcock the credit for leadership among 
the consuls, and sees only inconsistency in the course adopted by the Americans. 
He states, however, that the American action in declai'ing for a free port forced 
the dissolution of the "provisional system" which had been operative so far as 
the Americans and English were concerned. 

Morse also fails to make clear the reasons for the course adopted by the 
Americans, 



THE POLICY OF COMMISSIONER McLANE 227 

maintaining uniformity at the five ports in the collection of 
customs, was to devise some plan by which the corruption 
in the Shanghai customs service might be eliminated, and 
the collection of dues restored. 

On the 21st of June, in an interview with E-liang, the 
Viceroy and Governor General of the Liang Kiang Prov- 
inces, in which Shanghai was situated, Commissioner 
McLane outlined a plan by which full power "should be 
given to the superintendent of customs at Shanghai to enter 
into and conclude an arrangement with the consuls of the 
three treaty powers for the administration of the customs 
house at this port hereafter on a permanent basis." ^ It 
called for the reestablishment of the customs house at Soo- 
chow Creek, under the immediate direction of a board of 
foreign inspectors. To this plan the viceroy agreed. On the 
29th of June the three consuls and the taotai at Shanghai 
had a conference in which the latter formally confessed his 
inability to secure customs house officials of sufficient 
probity, vigilance and knowledge of foreign languages for the 
effective administration of the customs. He expressed the 
conviction that the only solution of the problem lay in 
securing the services of foreigners who, having been care- 
fully selected, should be appointed by the taotai as his rep- 
resentatives for the collection of the customs. It was fur- 
ther agreed that a suitable establishment could be effected 
with one or more foreigners acting under the taotai as in- 
spectors of customs, supplemented by a staff of both foreign 
and Chinese subordinates. The expenses of the new system 
could be met out of the customs revenues. The consuls, on 
their part, agreed to select and nominate to the taotai, one 
for each consul, suitable candidates for the board of inspec- 
tors. 

To safeguard the new system from the evils of the old 
one, these foreign inspectors were to be protected on the 
one hand, and the Chinese Government was to be pro- 
tected on the other, by an arrangement that any charges 
of exaction, corruption, neglect of duty or misconduct might 
be made to the consuls, and trials of the accused inspector 



228 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

would be held before a mixed court in the presence of the 
consuls and the taotai. The inspectors would be liable to 
dismissal only by this process. All subordinates would hold 
office during good behavior, and subject to dismissal only 
upon recommendation from the inspectors. 

It was further stipulated in the agreement between the 
taotai and the consuls that the records of the new customs 
house would be kept in both Chinese and English, and that 
an armed revenue cutter under a foreign master would be 
secured.* 

In the view of both the American State Department and 
the British Foreign Office, the mode of selection of the 
inspectors was objectionable in that the candidates were to 
be nominated by the consuls. This, it was thought, ap- 
proached too closely towards making the foreign consuls 
responsible for the efficient conduct of the customs office. 
In the reorganization of the foreign inspectorate under the 
treaties of 1858, this provision was eliminated, and thus 
China was incidentally saved, as it proved, from an invasion 
by the American spoils system. 

The foundations were thus laid in 1854, all the treaty 
powers heartily cooperating, for the foreign inspectorate of 
Chinese Maritime Customs as, with elaborations, it exists 
today. Fundamentally the necessity for it grew out of the 
provision of the American Treaty of Wanghia (1844) which 
had thrown the entire burden for the collection of its cus- 
toms from foreigners upon the Imperial Government. This 
provision of the American treaty, as has been elsewhere 
pointed out, had placed upon the Chinese Government the 
responsibility for the existence of smuggling, and had also 
placed at a disadvantage the British merchants who were 
compelled to pay duties through the British consuls. The 

*The credit for this plan has always been claimed for Mr. Rutherford Alcock. 
On the other hand, Commissioner McLane who, unlike his predecessor, was a 
very modest man, makes no special claim for credit in the matter although he 
does report the fact, already noted, that he presented the plan personally to 
E-liang and securM his approval. But the American merchants who protested 
against the foreign inspectorate two j^ears later stated that the system had been 
established "chiefly at the suggestion and by the efforts of the Hon. Mr. 
McLane." It is therefore probable that to McLane belongs the credit of having 
devised the general plan and initiated it. while to Alcock, as the senior consul 
in Shanghai and as obviously the best fitted to do it, fell the work of drawing 
up the details of the agreement.^ 



THE POLICY OF COMMISSIONER McLANE 229 

new system, providing a way out of the difficulty for the 
English, was broadly in harmony with the principle of the 
American treaty which had come to be adopted by all treaty 
powers, and was effective. 

So effective was it that the American merchants in 
Shanghai in 1856 and again in 1858, at the time of the 
revision of the treaties, protested against it, and petitioned 
for its removal, but the protests went unheeded by the 
American representatives who expressed the opinion that 
instead of removing it, the system should be extended to 
cover the other open ports, as well as Shanghai, an action 
which was taken in the revision of the treaties in 1858. f 

The board of inspectors consisted of Thomas Francis 
Wade, who was loaned from the British consulate in Shang- 
hai, Arthur Smith, nominated by the French consul, and 
Lewis Carr, an American. Of these three Mr. Wade alone 
understood Chinese, or was experienced in China, and upon 
him fell the duties of organizing the new service. Three 
years later Mr. Carr absented himself from duty for a long 
period. Meanwhile the American consul, Mr, Murphy, 
went home on leave of absence, having first secured from 
the taotai a promise that the latter would hold open the 
position for someone to be nominated by Murphy. The 
result was that the position remained vacant for a long 
time although Dr. Parker, then Commissioner, had a nom- 
inee whom he wished to place in the position. American 
influence in the newly developed inspectorate was, therefore, 
never great, the American incumbent of the board being 
neither useful nor ornamental. The situation was an illus- 
tration, often repeated, of how ill prepared was the United 
States to assume responsibilities in China, however friendly 
American policies and principles might be. On the resigna- 
tion of Mr. Wade, Horatio N. Lay, of subsequent Lay- 
Osborn-Flotilla fame, was appointed, and he in turn was 
superseded by Robert Hart whose distinguished services for 
China became so well known. The Americans in China 
complained bitterly of the disappearance of American influ- 
ence in the foreign inspectorate. The fault lay solely with 



230 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

the American Government which, though repeatedly im- 
portuned to provide for student interpreters and a large 
staff of consular officers to meet the growing opportunities 
and responsibilities of the United States in China, had 
ignored the requirements of the situation. 

McLane Settles the American Claims 

Having disposed of the question of the payment of cus- 
toms dues, McLane turned his attention to the equally per- 
plexing and disturbing question of the disposal of the com- 
plicated claims for duties due from Americans since the 
establishment of the 'provisional rules' of September 19, 
1853. According to the treaty the method for settling this 
matter would have been for the taotai to bring a complaint 
in the consular court which would have come up to McLane 
for official review in his capacity as supreme judge, but the 
commissioner proposed an alternative, viz., that all the 
parties concerned should submit the matter to him as a 
'mediator,' agreeing to abide by his decision. Both the 
merchants and the Chinese officials were willing to accept 
this alternative proposal. 

While McLane had the matter under review Lord Clar- 
endon ordered Sir John Bowring to have cancelled the 
promissory notes deposited by the English merchants on the 
ground that ''the obligation on the part of British subjects 
to pay duties to the Chinese Government depends upon 
the fulfillment by the Chinese Government of its obligation 
to afford protection to British commerce and upon the 
ability of the Chinese authorities to collect the duties accru- 
ing to their Government." This order from the Foreign 
Office was embarrassing to Bowring who was then planning 
a joint expedition with McLane to the Pei-ho to secure new 
treaties. If the English were to cancel their notes and the 
Americans were to pay the duties, the English would be in 
an awkward position before the representatives of the 
Emperor, in the negotiation of a treaty. McLane recog- 
nized the difficulty of his brother plenipotentiary, and was 



THE POLICY OF COMMISSIONER McLANE 231 

willing to defer his award as long as posible to enable 
Bowring to bring the Foreign Office into line with the policy 
which he and McLane had adopted. On the other hand, 
McLane did not feel that Lord Clarendon's contention was 
sound owing Ho the peculiar relations established between 
the Chinese authorities and the authorities of Great Britain 
and the United States' during the year of the disturbance 
at Shanghai. McLane also recognized the injustice of 
penalizing the American merchants for their good faith and 
in the settlement he mitigated the penalty by allowing the 
Chinese one third of the amount claimed, deducting a third 
for losses which the Americans had suffered through the 
disturbance of the trade, and a third for the increase in the 
value of the specie which had occurred since the 'provisional 
rules' became operative. Both merchants and taotai ac- 
cepted this award. 

But the question, even then, was not disposed of. About 
three weeks before McLane rendered his award, Secretary 
of State Marcy reached a conclusion similar to that of Lord 
Clarendon's and ordered that the American notes also be 
cancelled. When this order reached Dr. Parker in January, 
1855, he was greatly disturbed. It did not seem to him 
possible that satisfactory explanations could be made to 
the Chinese for the reversal of McLane's decision. He 
therefore wrote to the department explaining the situation, 
and at the same time ordered Consul Murphy to return the 
notes to the merchants, but to take in return the agreements 
that in case the United States Government reversed its 
decision, they would make payments in good faith. At the 
same time he instructed Consul Murphy to explain the 
matter to the taotai, and in case the latter protested the 
action, to cancel the notes immediately and thus to conclude 
the business. The taotai, however, was willing to wait 
patiently. In due time the State Department, having 
received more complete information, and having referred 
the matter to Caleb Gushing, then Attorney General, de- 
cided that the award made by McLane as a mediator could 
not be reversed, and the amount awarded was ordered paid. 



232 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

And to the everlasting credit of the American merchants — 
the same men who were then trying to have the foreign 
inspectorate abolished — the money was paid without further 
protest or discussion. 

Treaty Revision 

McLane's primary efforts in China were directed towards 
securing from the Imperial Government some important 
modifications of the Cushing treaty. In this as well as in the 
customs matter he was following a policy which had. been 
initiated by his predecessor. 

In July, 1853, when Marshall had been so impressed with 
the danger of either Russian or British intervention, he had 
outlined to Marcy a very bold policy which he had never 
been able to carry out because Commodore Perry had been 
unable, and also unwilling, to cooperate with him.''' Mar- 
shall had proposed ''an interference by the United States to 
quiet and tranquilize China." His plan was to proceed to 
Peking, convince the Emperor of the friendly purposes of 
the United States and then to offer the support of the 
American military and naval forces to the Imperial Govern- 
ment in return for certain concessions which he outlined as 
follows: amnesty to all rebels who might be willing to 
return to loyalty to the Manchus ; freedom of religious opin- 
ion and worship ; complete opening of the empire to trade ; 
and the establishment of diplomatic relations with treaty 
powers through a department of foreign affairs. 

"It would only be intervention in vindication of the 
rights of the American citizens," urged Marshall, "an inter- 
vention promised in the President's inaugural address,* 
wherever the citizen might of right be when the power is 
involved." 

*Iii his inaugural address, March 4, 1853, President Pierce had said : "The 
rights which belong to a nation are not alone to be regarded, but those which 
pertain to every citizen in his individual capacity, at home and abroad, must 
be sacredly maintained. So long as he can discern every star in its place upon 
that ensign, without wealth to purchase for him preferment or title to secure 
for him place, it will be his privilege, and must be his acknowledged right, to 
stand unabashed even in the presence of princes, with a proud consciousness 
that he is himself one of a nation of sovereigns and that he cannot in legitimate 
pursuit wander so far from home that the agent whom he shall leave behind 
in the place which I now occupy will not see that no rude hand of power or 
tyrannical passion is Taid upon him with impunity." » 



THE POLICY OF COMMISSIONER McLANE 233 

Marshall's proposal never received the approval of the 
Government of the United States. It is probable, how- 
ever, that he would have undertaken at least that part of his 
program which involved going to the Pei-ho and demand- 
ing admission to the Court of Peking, had he been able to 
command the services of a naval vessel. Commodore Aulick, 
and Commodore Perry who succeeded to the command of 
the China Squadron shortly after Marshall's arrival in 
China, thwarted every effort made by Marshall to go to the 
Pei-ho. Perry dissented strongly from the wisdom of such 
an expedition, feeling that it would in all probability pro- 
duce only unfriendly feelings. As for intervening on behalf 
of the Imperial Government against the Taipings, he was 
opposed to it, sympathizing rather with the rebels.*^ 

Viceroy Yeh refused to meet McLane upon his arrival 
in China in the spring of 1854, as he had evaded a meeting 
with Marshall the previous year. 

"The archives of our legation," wrote McLane, April 26, "present 
a very humiliating view of our past relations with China; the inso- 
lence of Chinese officials having rendered intercourse between the 
two countries most unsatisfactory. It is difficult to understand 
whether this be the result of an incorrigible antipathy on the part of 
the Chinese towards foreigners, or a refined and cunning policy, by 
which they maintained non-intercourse and at the same time non- 
resistance." ^* 

Sir John Bowring immediately proposed that the two 
powers join in a naval demonstration against Canton for 
the purpose of compelling Yeh to receive them. McLane 
'strenuously resisted' this proposal because the British naval 
forces in the Far East were then occupied with the Crimean 
War, and he was of the opinion that Bowring would be 
impotent to carry through such a policy in case of failure 
at Canton. 

McLane abruptly terminated his correspondence with 
Yeh and departed for the North. At Foochow he failed to 
see the Governor General although the Treaty of Wanghia 
specified him as one of the three means of communication 
with Peking. At Shanghai McLane found the city under the 



234 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

joint protection of the English, French and American naval 
forces, the Imperial authority not having been restored 
since the fall of the city the previous year. In June he paid 
a visit to the rebel capital at Nanking and became thor- 
oughly convinced that the success of the Taipings would in 
no way benefit the foreign powers. On the basis of his 
observations he formulated a policy not very dissimilar from 
that of Marshall's the preceding year. He proposed to 
enlarge the 'protectorate character' of the existing treaty. 

"Could this government be made to understand and acknowledge," 
wrote McLane to Marcy, June 14, 1854, "the true state of its relations 
with foreign nations, it would not be difficult, even at this time and 
in the face of the prevailing disorder, to adjust existing difficulties 
and greatly enlarge our commercial intercourse. To accomjplish this 
result, whether the empire be governed in whole or in part by the rul- 
ing dynasty, or by those who are now conducting the revolutionary 
movement, it is necessary to enlarge the powers and duties which de- 
volve on the United States by the terms of the treaty, both to enforce 
the stipulations of the same and to prevent the abuse of their flag, 
when used as a cover to the violation of the laws of the Chinese Em- 
pire. Without such an exercise of power on our part, it will be quite 
impossible to maintain the honor and integrity of our flag, or avoid 
those collisions which the weakness and corruption of the Chinese 
authorities render inevitable. As a consideration for such enlarge- 
ment of the protectorate character of the existing treaty, the interior 
should be opened to us, where we would extend the moral power of 
our civilization, and the material power necessary to protect the lives 
and property of our people."" 

A few days after writing the above letter McLane had 
an interview with E-liang, the Viceroy of the Liang Kiang 
Provinces, not far from Shanghai. In this interview E-liang 
complained of the conduct of the Americans in China and 
stated that the failure of the foreign powers to recognize the 
reestablished authority of the Imperial Government at 
Shanghai had been a great embarrassment to the govern- 
ment. I He also complained that the foreigners had been 
supplying the rebels with ammunition and aiding them in 
other ways. McLane in turn pointed out how Marshall's 
policy of requiring the American merchants to continue 
the payment of duties at Shanghai had been an evidence of 
the good will of the American Government, and then pro- 
ceeded to unfold his plan for some 'supplemental articles' 



THE POLICY OF COMMISSIONER McLANE 235 

to the Treaty of Wanghia. This projet, which was subse- 
quently submitted in writing, explains very clearly what 
McLane meant by the enlargement of the 'protectorate 
character' of the existing treaty.^ ^ 

In brief, McLane proposed that the United States would 
engage to exert its power to prevent the abuse of its flag, or 
the violation of the treaty by its citizens if, in return, the 
Chinese Government would enlarge the commercial privi- 
leges of the United States. McLane rested his demand that 
the Emperor appoint a commissioner to treat with him, not 
upon the revision clause of the Treaty of Wanghia, but upon 
the fact that 'grave cause' existed for the revision of the 
treaty.* The grave cause was the fact that the treaty was 
now in abeyance at Shanghai where the Imperial Govern- 
ment was unable to discharge its obligations to protect 
American citizens, and that the government was further 
unable to protect the trade of Americans at Shanghai with 
the interior. McLane's argument was that in as much as 
the Chinese could not protect the trade, the American Gov- 
ernment should be allowed to do it. McLane then warned 
E-liang that if the Emperor refused to appoint a commis- 
sioner to negotiate with him the United States might feel 
authorized to turn to the Taipings.f 

* According to the provision of Art. 34 of the Treaty of Wanghia, negotia- 
tions for the revision of the treaty might come up at the end of twelve years 
(i. e., in 1856). The treaty also stated: "its provisions shall not be altered 
without grave cause." 

t McLane's proposals in detail were : 1. Americans to be admitted to any 
port, city or harbor on the Yangtze or its tributaries, provided that duties on 
imports are first paid at Shanghai, and that outward cargoes also pay duties at 
Shanghai. 

2. For and in consideration of the rights and privileges granted to the 
citizens of the United States, it is further provided and stipulated that the 
Government of the United States shall at once take active and efficient means 
to enforce upon their citizens the prompt payments of the duties prescribed in 
the Treaty of Wanghia, and said Government of the United States further 
agrees to prevent, by the interposition of their own authorities, any of their 
citizens from abusing their flag as a cover for the violation of the laws of the 
Empire, or of the treaty. 

But McLane did not intend to be caught in the assumption of such an obli- 
gation in any way that might in the future embarrass the trade. He therefore 
added : "For and" in as much as this additional obligation is incurred by the 
Government of the United States, in consideration of the before mentioned privi- 
leges granted to their citizens, it is further provided that if similar rights and 
advantages should at any time be granted or conceded by China to any other 
nation or nations, without this formal obligation being incurred by such nation 
or nations, then in such case the Government of the United States shall at 
once be released from the obligation hereby entered into, and shall enjoy said 
enlarged advantages as fully and as absolutely as such other nation or nations." 

3. Citizens of the United States to be allowed to go anywhere in China, to 
worship as they pleased, and to enjoy accommodations for houses, places of 
business, hospitals and churches and cemeteries, just as now at the five ports. '^ 



236 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

The extraordinary proposal that the Chinese Empire be 
opened almost without restriction to Americans in return for 
the assumption of responsibility to prevent the abuse of the 
American flag, an obligation already assumed in the existing 
treaty, and for further assumption of responsibility to aid in 
the prevention of smuggling, an obligation which Great 
Britain had freely assumed in her treaties of 1842-3, was 
actually forwarded to Peking, although McLane was noti- 
fied that it was sent only to Yeh at Canton. 

In commenting on McLane's visit and demands E-liang 
addressed a memorial to the throne.* 

_ "Thanks to the favor," read E-liang's report of what McLane had 
said, "of his Celestial Majesty, by which the five ports are open to 
trade, we have been enabled to steep ourselves in advantage. Of late 
years, however, the river communications have become impassable 
(owing to the rebellion) and the losses hence sustained by the 
merchants have determined us to request that his Majesty be entreated 
graciously to permit us to trade along the Yangtze River. The 
merchandise we bring up the river we will ourselves escort and protect. 
If (your excellency) will not do me the honor to make a representation 
for me to this effect to the throne, I shall be obliged to proceed to 
Tientsin. 

"Your slave told him authoritatively (as his official superior) that 
the treaty under which the five ports were open to trade, being that 
to which the Imperial assent had been received with reference in the 
24th year .of Tau Kwang (1844), it became the duty of all alike, 
native and foreigner, officials and people, to observe it obediently for 
evermore. It was besides clearly laid down in the treaty that 'no 
state shall hereafter send a minister to China to raise separate (or 
fresh) discussions.' f The request now preferred, being at variance 
with the original treaty, could not well be conveyed to your Majesty." 

E-liang made a fairly accurate report of McLane's other 
requests and then commented on his quid pro quo proposal 
as follows : 

*This memorial was subsequently found in the Viceroy's yamen at Canton 
in January, 1858, when the British occupied the city, and was translated, along 
with many other similar documents, by Thomas Wade of the British Mission. 
It was not placed in the hands of the American Envoy, Mr. Reed, for some 
unexplained reason, until after he had negotiated and signed the Treaty of 
Tientsin. Mr. Reed stated in a speech before the Philadelphia Board of Trade, 
May 31, 1859, that had he known of this report when he was negotiating the 
Treaty of Tientsin, he might have been less good-natured in his dealings with 
the Chinese commissioners, and he even intimated that he might have joined 
with the allies, in the destruction of the Taku forts." 

t E-liang is quoting the clause in Art. 34 of the Treaty of Wanghia, which 
reads : "and no individual State of the United States can appoint or send a 
minister to China to call in question the provisions of the same." 



THE POLICY OF COMMISSIONER McLANE 237 

"He also handed in a communication in very obscure phraseology, 
characters in which had been taken to signify what they did not 
properly mean. On the whole it differed nothing from the language 
he had employed except in the addition that if, on representation 
made to the throne, he should be honored by (your Majesty's) assent 
to his requests, it woiild behoove him, of course, to assist China in 
completely removing her cause of disquiet. . . . 

"It is the very humble opinion of your slave, that, in as much as 
the American barbarians, heretofore accounted so submissive, have 
taken advantage of the present conjuncture to press their demands, 
reliance is surely not to be placed on their cooperation, though they 
promise it, in the restoration of order." 

E-liang also observed that the French and English would 
probably want something if any concessions were made to 
the Americans. 

This report of E-liang's drew from the throne an order 
that McLane must return to Canton, and that it would be 
Yeh's duty to forestall the American commissioner's malice, 
and to address him 'authoritatively in peremptory language.' 

To the student of American policy in China the most 
notable feature of McLane's projet is the fact that, while 
contemplating the opening of the entire country to Ameri- 
can trade, it departed entirely from the principles laid 
down in the Cushing treaty that China alone must enforce 
her own laws and also protect the Americans within her 
borders. These departures from existing American policy 
were entirely unauthorized, and no comment was ever made 
on them by Marcy. 

A few weeks after the close of the correspondence with 
E-liang in which McLane had served notice that he would 
press his demands at the Pei-ho, the American commissioner 
received instructions from Washington to aid Sir John 
Bowring in the renewal of the British treaties which was 
due, according to the English interpretation of the American 
treaty, on the 29th of August of that year.* 

*The Treaty of Nanking had been signed August 29, 1842. Tlie Treaty of 
thie Bogue, the following year, had contained a most-favored-nation clause. 
The American treaty stipulated that "inasmuch as the circumstances of the 
several ports of China open to foreign commerce are different, experience may 
show that considerable modifications are requisite in those parts which relate 
to commerce and navigation ; in which case the two Governments will at the 
expiration of twelve years from the date of said convention, treat amicably 
concerning the same. . . ." It was on the strength of these facts that Great 
Britain rested the claim for a revision of the treaties — a claim which Yeh at 
Canton promptly rejected. 



238 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

Bowring had suffered from Yeh treatment very similar 
to that which had been administered to Marshall and 
McLane, and at length formally notified Yeh that he would 
seek, in company with the American Minister, the revision 
of the treaties at the mouth of the Pei-ho. 



McLane and Bowring Go to the Pei-ho 

The British Minister, unlike McLane, was under very 
specific and well considered instructions from his govern- 
ment as to just what he should ask for in the treaties.* 

The proposals were much more moderate, as well as 
more detailed, than those which McLane had presented to 
E-liang. Beside them the projet of the American Commis- 
sioner was ill-considered and rash. It is at this point that 
the inherent weakness of the American, as contrasted with 
the British, diplomatic establishment in China becomes con- 
spicuously apparent, Bowring had been in China for many 
years; McLane only a few months. Lord Clarendon had 
been studying the relations between Great Britain and 
China from an exceptional point of observation for m.ore 
than a score of years. President Pierce and Secretary of 
State Marcy had very recently come into office, and so little 
did they know of the actual situation in China that McLane 
was not only without detailed instructions covering such 
points as Clarendon had outlined to Bowring, but McLane's 
projet when reported to Washington, failed to draw any 
word of criticism or of caution. McLane enjoyed to the 
fullest extent the confidence of the administration and, had 
he not insisted on the acceptance of his resignation because 
of ill health, he would have been returned to China the 

*These points were : 1. Access to all of China, or, failing this, free naviga- 
tion of the Yangtze as far as Nangking and the opening of some more ports on 
the coast. 2. Legalization of the opium trade. 3. Abolishment of internal or 
transit dues on goods imported from foreign countries, or destined to be 
exported to foreign countries. 4. Provision for the effectual suppression of 
piracy along the coast. 5. Regulation of the emigration of Chinese laborers. 
6. Permanent and honorable residence of a diplomatic representative of the 
British Crown af Peking ; or, if this could not be obtained, then provision for 
habitual correspondence between the British and the Chinese authorities at the 
capital. 7. Provision for ready intercourse between the British representative 
in China and the governor of any province where the representative might be 
residing. 8. In the revised treaty the English version alone to be the authori- 
tative text. 



THE POLICY OF COMMISSIONER McLANE 239 

following year to take up the negotiations where he had 
dropped them. 

On November 3 Commissioner McLane and Sir John 
Bowring had an interview in a tent near the Hae Kow Forts 
at the mouth of the Pei-ho, with Tsung Lun, an Imperial 
Commissioner of inferior rank. It had been intended 
originally that the French Minister, M. de Bourboulon, 
should accompany them to the Pei-ho, but an accident 
to the French war vessel in which he was to go made it 
impossible. He therefore sent Count Kleskowsky of the 
French legation, as his representative. The French officer 
was the guest of the American Commissioner on board the 
U. S. war steamer Powhatan. 

In the interview of November 3, Bowring did not submit 
an outline of the changes in the treaty which he desired. 
McLane on the contrary added to his pro jet a great many 
details which had been omitted from the outline submitted 
to E-Uang. The entire negotiations came to nothing. The 
envoys were told to go back to Canton, there to wait for an 
answer from the Emperor, It was already evident from the 
tone of Tsung Lun's comments, that the Emperor was will- 
ing to grant none of the important points proposed by 
McLane. The result of the expedition was that the de- 
mands of two of the treaty powers had been successfully 
denied by the Imperial authorities, and the meanness of 
their reception in the tent interview was a clear indication 
that the Government of China would never willingly treat 
with the foreign powers on terms of diplomatic e quality. ^^ 

Tsung Lun and his associate made complete reports to 
the Emperor on the meeting with the foreign envoys, one 
of Tsung Lun's comments being: ^'^ "The English barbar- 
ians are . . . full of insidious schemes, uncontrollably fierce 
and imperious. The American nation does no more than 
follow their direction." 

McLane returned from the Pei-ho in November in no 
mood for temporizing. After submitting a full report to the 
President he outlined the following possible courses of 
action: ^'^ (1) To adhere to the former policy of awaiting 



240 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

developments, preserving strict neutrality between the 
rebels and the Imperialists, and protecting American inter- 
ests as far as possible with the United States naval forces 
then on the coast. (2) To aid the Imperial forces in sup- 
pressing the rebellion, or, (3) for the President to address 
a letter to the Emperor pointing out that China had violated 
her treaty with the United States, this letter to be presented 
at the mouth of the Pei-ho by two sloops of war and a 
steamer. In case the Emperor will not accede to the de- 
mand to open up friendly diplomatic intercourse with the 
United States to secure the settlement of these pending 
questions, and the revision of the treaty, then McLane pro- 
posed more vigorous action. 

"I would recommend," he wrote, "that the Pei-ho and the Yangtze 
Kiang, as well as the River Min and the Whampoa Reach be placed 
under blockade by the united forces of the three treaty powers — ■ 
Great Britain,, France and the United States — and so held until the 
commercial privileges of buying from and selling to all persons in 
China, without limitation or restraint, is respected, and all the other 
treaty stipulations recognized and enforced, where the authority of 
the Imperial Government is paramount." 

McLane felt that to pursue the first of these policies was 
futile, and he did not believe that the Government of the 
United States would favor the second. He heartily recom- 
mended the joint blockade. 

To this recommendation Secretary of State Marcy re- 
plied in a letter of instructions which reached China long 
after McLane had left,^^ that "the President will have 
serious objections to uniting with Great Britain and France 
in what you call the aggressive policy — that is the bringing 
together a united naval force of the three powers in order 
to obtain the revision of the treaties with China, securing 
larger commercial privileges by intimidation, or possibly by 
force. . . ." 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

1. S. Ex. Doe. 39 :36-l. 

2. McLane Corres., S. Ex. Doc. 22:35-2, May 4, '54; see also 

Michie's "The Englishman in China," Vol. 1, p. 149; Morse, 
Vol. 2, pp. 19-88. 



THE POLICY OF COMMISSIONER McLANE 241 

3. MeLane Corres., pp. 33-39. 

4. lUd., p. 112. 

5. Michie, Vol. 1, p. 152; S. Ex. Doc. 22:35-2, p. 908. 

6. Sen. Ex. Doc. 22 :35-2, p. 908 ; S. Ex. Doc 30 :36-l, p. 530. 

7. Marshall Corres., p. 205. 

8. Richardson's Messages, Vol. 5, pp. 199-200. 

9. Marshall Corres., pp. 18-24, 25, 85, 132-5, 352. 

10. McLane Corres., pp. 21-2.. 

11. Ihid., p. 54. 

12. lUd., pp. 143 ff. 

13. Ihid., p. 147. 

14. S. Ex. Doc. 30:36-1, p. 452; Eeed's speech (pamphlet), p. 16. 

15. For complete account of the Pei-ho expedition, see Disp. No. 20, 

McLane Corres., p. 285 ff. 

16. S. Ex. Doc. 30 :36-l, p. 478. 

17. McLane Corres., pp. 287-292. 

18. China Instructions, Vol. 1, Feb. 26, 1855. 



CHAPTER XIII 

ATTEMPTS TO OPEN JAPAN TO TEADE 

While the opening of Japan by Commodore Perry in 
1854 came as a direct result of American trade expansion, 
the causes which produced it were not so simple as those 
which led to the Cushing Mission. In 1844 American rela- 
tions with the Far East were almost exclusively with China ; 
in 1853 they were not only with China but also with the 
entire North Pacific Ocean. 

Japan and Early Pacific Trade 

The rapid growth of the Northwest Coast fur trade had 
brought Japan for a few years within the interest of Ameri- 
cans, yet without leading to any definite results. The 
Lady Washington (Captain Kendrick) and the Grace 
(Captain Douglas) visited a southern port of Japan in 1791 
in an effort to dispose of sea-otter peltries, on their way to 
Canton, but the Japanese had refused to trade with them. 
This visit and refusal made so little impression that they 
were almost immediately forgotten by Americans, few of 
whom aside from the crews of the vessels appear to have 
known of it.^ 

In 1807 the Eclipse of Boston, chartered by the Russian- 
American Company at Canton for Kamchatka and the 
Northwest Coast, and carrying several British sailors who 
had been induced to desert from Company ships at Wham- 
poa, visited Nagasaki and was peacefully captured by the 
Japanese, supplied freely with water and permitted to de- 
part. The Eclipse entered the Japanese port under the 
Russian flag which the Dutch superintendent advised them 
to haul down because the Japanese had been so enraged 

242 



ATTEMPTS TO OPEN JAPAN TO TRADE 243 

by the conduct of Russian officers in Sakhalen the previous 
year.^ At the close of the War in 1812, the new vigor of 
American trade expansion is registered in the proposition 
made by Commodore Porter to Secretary of State Monroe 
to send an expedition to Japan. A frigate and two sloops 
of war were proposed for the enterprise but nothing was 
done about it.^ Porter, during the war, had occupied Madi- 
son Island in the South Pacific, November, 1813, building a 
fort which he manned with four guns, A month later he 
was compelled to surrender to Commodore Hillyar of the 
British navy near Valparaiso. Porter eventually made his 
way back to New York where he arrived in the summer of 
1815. His proposal to open Japan may be said to have 
marked the high tide of American interest in the Pacific 
until 1830.* 

Another series of approaches to Japan were made 
through Batavia. In 1797 the Eliza (Captain Stewart) re- 
ported as belonging to New York, and carrying the Ameri- 
can flag, appeared at Nagasaki. Captain Stewart repre- 
sented himself as the agent of the Dutch East India Com- 
pany of Batavia, and in some way effected an exchange of 
cargo. The following year the Eliza returned, secured 
another cargo, but had the misfortune to strike a rock in 
Nagasaki harbor and was compelled to remain in port until 
the next season. In 1799 the Eliza sailed away with its 
cargo, but it did not go to Batavia. Four years later the 
vessel returned, still under the American flag, but from 
Bengal. Meanwhile both the Dutch and the Japanese had 
become aware that the Eliza was really employed by the 
British in an effort to create a British trade with Japan, 
and the vessel was refused a cargo. Captain Stewart was 
an Englishman and the vessel, while it may have been built 
in America and sold in the East, probably was entirely with- 
out legal right to fly the American flag.^ 

The first genuinely American vessel, after the Lady 
Washington and the Grace, to enter Japan was the Franklin 
(Captain Devereaux) of Boston, owned by the Perkinses 
and James Dunlap. The Franklin arrived at Batavia from 



244 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

Boston in April, 1799, and was immediately engaged by the 
East India Company to take the place of the annual Dutch 
ship to Nagasaki, an American vessel being chosen because 
of its neutral character. This was the first ripple of the 
Napoleonic wars in Asia. Captain Devereaux was in- 
structed to hoist the Dutch pennant "as if you were a 
Dutch ship" as soon as he came in sight of Japan. The 
instructions also contained one order which throws light on 
the cause of Japanese exclusiveness, harking back to history 
nearly two centuries old. 

"All the books of the people and officers, particularly religious 
books, must be put in a cask and headed up [upon approaching' 
Japan] ; the officers from shore will put their seals upon the cask, and 
take it on shore, and on the departure of the ship, will bring it on 
board without having opened it." 

The Franklin remained about four months in Nagasaki 
harbor, and reached Batavia again December 18, 1799.*^ 
In 1801 the Margaret (Captain Samuel Derby) of Salem, 
secured the contract for the East India Company voyage, 
and similar voyages were made in 1802, 1803, 1806, 1807 
and 1809, after which the Dutch factory at Nagasaki was 
left without word from the outside world until near the 
close of the Napoleonic wars, when the British made a 
second unsuccessful effort to take up the trade. In view of 
the fact that these American vessels were compelled to hoist 
the Dutch flag when in Japanese waters, one wonders 
whether the American flag was actually shown at Nagasaki 
after 1791. 

Edmund Roberts and Japan 

The part of the program of Edmund Roberts in 1832 
which included Japan has already been alluded to. From 
the inauguration of the Roberts Mission the idea of making 
a treaty with Japan appears to have grown rapidly into 
favor with the American Government. At the request of 
the Department of State John Shellaber, United States Con- 
sul at Batavia, prepared outlines of a program of treaty- 



ATTEMPTS TO OPEN JAPAN TO TRADE 245 

making in the East which included many suggestions about 
JapanJ He advised that an attempt to make at least some 
sort of an agreement with the Empire would probably meet 
with success. Previous missions had failed, he thought, 
"owing to the jealous fears entertained by the Japanese Em- 
perors that those powers would sooner or later, if any inter- 
course was opened, interfere with the internal affairs of the 
Empire, attempt to subvert its Government and probably 
make a conquest of the country. I allude more especially 
to England and Russia." Shellaber pointed out that the 
Americans would be free of all suspicion, and predicted that 
in three or four years a trade would grow up with a tonnage 
of 5000, amounting to $300,000. At least, thought the con- 
sul, the mission could secure in Japan a resort for American 
whale ships. Shellaber strongly recommended that the pro- 
posed expedition should be carried in a merchant rather 
than a national vessel. 

A few weeks after Edmund Roberts departed from Bos- 
ton in the Peacock a commission was issued to him (June 
26, 1832) to go to Japan, but no mention was made in it of 
securing a treaty.^ Four months later (October 28, 1832) 
Secretary of State Livingston wrote to Roberts again, stating 
that the government had in contemplation a separate mis- 
sion to that empire, but authorizing Roberts, in case the 
prospects seemed favorable, "to fill oui one of the letters of 
credence" and go to Japan. He was however cautioned to 
go in a merchant vessel, having the Peacock only as a con- 
voy. The Peacock was to wait outside for a favorable 
development of the negotiations.'^ Roberts found it im- 
practicable, owing to lack of funds, to carry out the sugges- 
tion of Livingston, but he reported from Batavia, June 22, 
1833: i« 

"I have no doubt from information obtained from merchants of 
the first respectability in this place that by judicious management 
all the principal ports in Japan would be thrown open to the American 
trade. The Americans are the only people who can probably effect 
this. The Portuguese and Spaniards are by law of the Empire for- 
ever excluded, and the unprincipled conduct of Captain Pellew of the 
Phaeton in 1808 in the harbor of Nagasaki, has caused the Japanese 



246 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

Government to reject every overture which has been made to them 
since that time by the British. During the last European war several 
American ships were chartered here for the Dutch factory at Decima, 
and met with no difficulty on account of the flag." 

Upon Roberts' return from his first mission he made a 
report to Secretary of State McLane (May 12, 1834) in 
which he stated that the Dutch, owing to their jealousy of 
Americans, "whom they fear as their only rivals," had mis- 
represented the character of the Japanese for their own 
ends. He believed the Japanese to be free from every pre- 
judice that would prevent Americans from trading with 
them, and suggested that the way to the trade with Korea 
and northern China would be open in case a treaty were 
made with Japan. 

By means of other investigations and unknown sources 
the Department of State was advised that the proposed 
approach to Japan ought to be made in a national ship, that 
it should be made at some port other than Nagasaki, pre- 
ferably nearer the seat of government, and that while 
general trade would not at first be permitted, it seemed 
probable that a beginning might be made. Presents to the 
Emperor should accompany the envoy.* 

In view of the success which had attended the first 
Roberts mission, apparently all thought of a special mission 
to Japan was abandoned, and when Roberts sailed again to 
exchange ratifications of the treaties of Muscat and Siam, 
he was commissioned to resume the negotiations with 
Cochin China and then to proceed with all secrecy to Japan 
in the Peacock. The death of Roberts at Macao in 1836 
brought this enterprise to an end. 

Visit of the Morrison, 1837 

The next American effort to unlock the gates of Japan 
was a private one undertaken by the firm of Olyphant and 
Company of Canton in 1837. The Olyphant firm had come 

♦This information was secured in answer to a list of ten questions and was 
contributed bv some American who had been a resident at the Dutch factory 
perhaps in 1807 or 1809." 



ATTEMPTS TO OPEN JAPAN TO TRADE 247 

to occupy a unique place in the commercial life of Canton 
because of the refusal of the firm to deal in opium and 
because of the hearty support to the Protestant missionaries 
afforded not only by D. W. C. Olyphant the founder, but 
also by the younger partners. Indeed it had been in part 
due to Olyphant that the first American missionaries, Rev. 
E. C. Bridgman and Rev. Edwin Stevens, were sent to 
China in 1830.^^ As the Olyphant firm prospered, the sup- 
port to the missionaries increased and widened. In 1835 
the firm had made it possible for Medhurst and Stevens to 
make a voyage of missionary exploration northward along 
the coast in the brig Huron. The results of this voyage so 
encouraged the firm that they had the Himmaleh built in 
the United States at a cost of $20,000 and fitted out for a 
cruise of missionary trade and exploration in the Malay 
archipelago and Japan Sea. The Himmaleh took on Rev. 
Edwin Stevens of the American Board and G. Tradescant 
Lay, agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society and 
started southward. There was no opium or firearms in the 
cargo. The voyage proved abortive, owing in part to the 
death of Stevens in Singapore in January, 1837. The Him- 
maleh returned to Canton, was loaded with tea and dis- 
patched to the United States. 

The voyage of the Morrison, while not directly related to 
the previous experiments of the Himmaleh, is to be con- 
sidered in the light of that experience. The Morrison, be- 
longing to Olyphant and Company, and named after the 
famous missionary; arrived in China too late in the spring 
of 1837 to secure a return cargo. The vessel must therefore 
lay over a season, and C. W. King, one of the Olyphant 
partners, only twenty-eight years old, proposed to occupy 
the idle time with a voyage of exploration to Japan similar 
to that undertaken by the Himmaleh to Borneo and Celebes. 
There were at that time at Macao seven shipwrecked Jap- 
anese sailors, three from the Northwest coast who had 
reached China by way of London, and four who had been 
brought in from the Pacific by way of Manila. King decided 
not to wait for the return of the Himmaleh but rather to 



248 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

proceed at once to Japan to repatriate the Japanese, and to 
seize the opportunity to open up negotiations for missionary 
work and for trade. The Morrison was unarmed, and the 
party included S. Wells Williams, missionary printer of the 
American Board, Rev. Peter Parker, M. D., of the Mission- 
ary Ophthahiiic Hospital at Canton, and Rev. Charles Gutz- 
laff who had recently entered the service of the British 
Government as interpreter. Gutzlaff joined the expedition 
at Lew Chew, Napa, to which point he was conveyed in the 
British sloop of war Raleigh. 

The Morrison reached the Bay of Yedo in July, 1837, 
anchored at Uraga, and declared the purpose of the visit. 
It was also contemplated to offer the Japanese a teacher, 
i.e., a missionary, if they were willing to receive him. The 
authorities refused to have any dealings with the Morrison, 
ordered her away and then opened fire upon the vessel from 
the forts. A second effort was made at Kagoshima to open 
up communications with the authorities, but a second time 
the vessel was fired on. None of the Japanese sailors were 
landed. 

Mr. King wrote a book — "The Claims of Japan and 
Malaysia upon Christendom, exhibited in notes of voyages 
made in 1837 from Canton in the ship Morrison, and the 
brig Himmaleh, under the direction of the owners" — in 
which he urged the American Government to take up the 
insult to the American flag and to demand a treaty. S. 
Wells Williams returned to Macao much impressed with 
the superior strength and culture of the Japanese, and an- 
ticipated that 'a war-like attempt upon the nation' would 
be attended with 'fatal influences.' He immediately under- 
took, with the aid of the Japanese sailors, the study of the 
language with a view to laying the foundations for future 
missionary work.^^ While the voyage of the Morrison had 
no immediate result, it may be said that from the time of 
its visit to Japan, the subject of opening up the country was 
never suffered to drop out of sight. 



ATTEMPTS TO OPEN JAPAN TO TRADE 249 

Revival of American Interest in Japan 

A 'full power' to treat with the Japanese authorities 
was issued, to Caleb Gushing, at his suggestion, August 15, 
1844.'^ The Secretary of State in forwarding the letter 
remarked that 'little probability exists of expecting any 
commercial arrangement with that country.' This authority 
did not reach Gushing before he returned to the United 
States. 

In less than three weeks after the publication of the 
Gushing correspondence on the Ghina treaty, Zedoc Pratt, 
of New York, introduced a resolution in the House calling 
for immediate measures to effect commercial arrangements 
with the Empire of Japan and the Kingdom of Korea on 
the ground that it was important "to the general interests 
of the United States that a steady and persevering effort 
should be made for the extension of American commerce, 
connected as that commerce is with the agriculture and 
manufactures of our country." This resolution expressed 
the confident hope that another year would not elapse before 
the American people would ''be able to rejoice in the knowl- 
edge that the 'star-spangled banner' is recognized as an 
ample passport and protection for all. . . ." The resolu- 
tion, however, passed unnoticed.^ ^ 

The whale ship Manhattan (Gaptain Mercator Gooper) 
of Sag Harbor, had visited the Bay of Yedo April 17, 1845, 
with a number of shipwrecked Japanese sailors and had been 
very kindly treated although not permitted to remain more 
than a few days. When the Manhattan left she carried 
some Japanese stowaways who had seized the opportunity 
thus offered to go abroad to study the western world. ^^ 

Alexander H. Everett, the first American Gommissioner 
to Ghina under the new treaty, who sailed for Ghina early in 
June 1845, carried a commission to negotiate a treaty with 
Japan, and Gommodore Biddle, who had been ordered to 
convey Everett to Ghina in the U. S. S. Columbus, also had 
instructions from the Secretary of the Navy, Bancroft, per- 
mitting him to make a visit to Japan in case Everett did 



250 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

not decide to accompany him. The new commissioner be- 
came ill on the voyage to Rio Janeiro. He was compelled 
to return and did not reach China until October, 1846. 
Meanwhile Commodore Biddle, to whom Everett had dele- 
gated his duties, proceeded to China, exchanged ratifica- 
tions of the treaty and then moved on up the coast to 
Shanghai where he found that Henry G. Wolcott had 
already begun to ship American cotton goods to Japan 
through the Chinese merchants. 

Commodore Biddle, with the Columbus and the Vin- 
cennes, anchored in the Bay of Yedo July 20, 1846, and 
inquired politely whether the Government of Japan was 
willing to open its ports to Americans and to make a treaty. 
The Japanese firmly refused. The conversations were 
seriously handicapped by lack of suitable interpreters, and 
the commodore's visit was marred by an incident which 
otherwise might have been avoided. While Biddle was 
about to go on board a Japanese junk to receive the formal 
answer of the government, a Japanese soldier either struck 
or pushed him. Biddle had not been expected by the 
Japanese officials and there were none ready to receive him. 
Profuse apologies were afterwards offered and Biddle stated 
that he would be satisfied with whatever punishment for 
the soldier the Japanese law provided. The reply to Bid- 
die's request for the opening of trade was an anonymous 
communication ordering him to go away and never return.^'' 

The magnanimous conduct of Commodore Biddle ap- 
pears to have been misinterpreted by the Japanese as 
weakness and lack of dignity. Accounts of the insult, mag- 
nified and misunderstood, spread not only throughout 
Japan, but even to the Lew Chews and the Americans were 
made to appear as having accepted an insult with com- 
placency. It was believed that Biddle's visit left matters 
in a 'less favorable position' than before. Before the report 
of Biddle's visit reached Washington, a second commission 
had been issued to Everett to replace the one he had given 
to Biddle, but Everett did not live to carry out the plans 
of his government.^ ^ 



ATTEMPTS TO OPEN JAPAN TO TRADE 251 

From the year 1846 the subject of a treaty with Japan 
came more and more to engage the attention of Americans. 
With the increase of American shipping at Shanghai, and 
the increase of the whale fisheries in the North Pacific, a 
larger number of vessels were coming into Japanese waters. 
The shores of Japan were largely uncharted, and rough 
weather was not uncommon. There were not a few wrecks. 
On June 8, 1846, Senator Dix of New York presented in the 
Senate a memorial signed by presidents of marine insurance 
companies, ship-builders and steam-engine manufacturers,^ 
proposing a mission to Japan.^'' 

The treatment of shipwrecked American sailors in Japan 
became one of the important influences which kept the 
subject alive. In May, 1846, the whaler Lawrence of Pough- 
keepsie (Captain Baker) was wrecked and eight of the 
crew reached shore. These survivors met with varied treat- 
ment, some of which was very severe. After seventeen 
months' imprisonment they were turned over to the Dutch 
factory and sent to Java on a Dutch merchantman. They 
had been in captivity when Commodore Biddle was 
anchored in the Bay of Yedo. In February, 1848, the whale 
ship Lagoda (Captain John Brown) of New Bedford struck 
a shoal in the Japan Sea and was wrecked. The survivors 
reached Matsumai and were transferred to Nagasaki where 
they were carefully confined. Information of their im- 
prisonment reached United States Commissioner John W. 
Davis at Canton, through the Dutch consul, and Commo- 
dore David Geissinger ordered Commander James Glynn, 
January 31, 1849, to proceed to Nagasaki in the Preble to 
rescue them. ''You will be careful," read Glynn's instruc- 
tions, "not to violate the laws or customs of the country, or 
by any means prejudice the success of any pacific policy our 
government may be inclined to pursue." His conduct was 
to be 'conciliatory but firm.' Glynn experienced some diffi- 
culty in effecting the release of the prisoners who had been 
very badly treated. Had the American Government been in 
a mood for reprisals or war, the treatment of the Lagoda 
survivors would have afforded sufficient excuse. Early in 



252 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

January, 1851, three more Americans who had found their 
way into Japan were repatriated through the Dutch 
factory.^" 

The cruel treatment to which the Americans in Japan 
were at times subjected is to be accounted for by the 
fact that the Japanese authorities, perhaps because of 
the increasing numbers of Americans who appeared in 
Japan, had come to entertain suspicions that the Ameri- 
cans were sending spies into the empire with sinister 
motives. 

Other factors contributing to the creation of public 
opinion in regard to the opening of Japan had their origin 
within the United States. 

China and the East generally were rapidly coming to be 
looked upon as the great future market for American prod- 
uce, especially manufactured cottons.* -^ The consequent 
new interest in Asia included Japan and Korea as well as 
China. The effort of A. H. Palmer of New York, director 
of the American and Foreign Agency, which carried on a 
business as commission agents in the foreign trade, espe- 
cially for steam vessels and machinery, were so extensive, 
so thorough, and so persistent as to warrant special notice. 
Palmer began a systematic study of the markets of Asia as 
early as 1839^ He would appear to have been father to that 
characteristically American method of commercial conquest 
by circularization. His circulars were spread broadcast 
through Asia, from the shores of eastern Africa to Japan. 
In the five years, 1842-7, he sent no less than fourteen such 
communications to Nagasaki, slipping them into Japan by 
means of the good offices of the Dutch factory, if indeed they 
ever went any farther. Palmer made a careful study of 
every possible market, giving especial attention to the politi- 
cal aspects, of the questions involved and was, presumably, 
the best informed American on the subject in 1852. He 
prepared at various times between 1846 and 1849 a number 

♦Unfortunately no careful study of the growth of American trade with China 
in this oeriod has been made. The evidence for this statement meets one, how- 
ever, throughout the British and American documents, some of which are cited 
subsequently. 



ATTEMPTS TO OPEN JAPAN TO TRADE 253 

of reports for the Department of State, one of which was 
addressed directly to President Polk (January 10, 1848). 
Palmer even prepared a plan for a mission and went so far 
as to submit a draft of a letter to be sent by President Taylor 
to the Emperor. He proposed that the Gushing treaty of 
1844 should serve as a model for a treaty. Palmer was 
afterwards described by ex-Secretary of State Clayton as 
'entitled to more credit for getting up the Japan Expedi- 
tion, than any other man I know of.' -^ 

Meanwhile others were approaching the problem from 
still another angle. The application of steam navigation to 
the trans-Pacific routes by American vessels met with the 
almost insuperable obstacle of lack of coal supplies. Steam 
navigation on the coast of China had been attempted with 
success during the Anglo-Chinese War, and had been taken 
up for mercantile purposes, but the coal was brought out 
from England and was very expensive. The voyage across 
the Pacific was more extended between coaling stations than 
any part of the voyage from England to China. The needs 
of American shipping companies were imperative. Japan 
was believed to have large supplies of coal, and her ports in 
the days of uncertain steam navigation were absolutely es- 
sential to the proposed line of American trans-Pacific 
steamers.-^ 

The settlement of the Pacific Coast by Americans, and 
especially the discovery, of gold in California yielded added 
argument for steam navigation of the Pacific. Then came 
the agitation for an Isthmian canal, the first proposal for 
which, apparently, was born in the brain of Captain Ken- 
drick on the Northwest coast before 1790. As early as 1826 
A. H. Palmer secured from the Republic of Central America 
a concession for a canal, and went to London to interest 
British capital in the venture.^'* In 1852 the building of the 
trans-Isthmian railroad and the establishment of a line of 
steamers up the Pacific Coast to San Francisco and the 
various projects for a transcontinental railroad from the 
Mississippi to either San Francisco or San Diego served to 
Dring the whole question of American relations in the Pacific 



254 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

and in Asia more directly to the attention of Americans 
than ever before. 

The various expansive movements, political and mili- 
tary as well as commercial, which characterized the fifth and 
sixth decades of the last century of American history, all 
created an atmospheric condition favorable to still further 
adventures. The times were quite different from those 
when Edmund Roberts was sent out to Asia in 1832 as a 
ship's clerk, or even when Gushing went to Macao. 

Before passing to the Perry Expedition we may appro- 
priately review briefly the course of events in Japan in the 
first half of the nineteenth century. 

European Powers and Japan 

Thoughtful Japanese had been made increasingly aware, 
on the one hand, that the policy of exclusion was costly to 
Japan and on the other, that the day was rapidly approach- 
ing when the policy could not be sustained before the ad- 
vance of the Western nations. To go back no further than 
the beginning of the nineteenth century, Japan had abeady 
felt the impact of advances from both Russia and England, 
and had been repeatedly warned by Holland. 

Russia had made herself an uncomfortable neighbor. 
In 1804 Captain Krusenstern had appeared at Nagasaki to 
take up the negotiations which had been begun by Lieuten- 
ant Laxman in 1792. Laxman had passed a winter on the 
northern coast of the island of Yezo, and visited both Hako- 
date and Nagasaki. He had been given a paper authorizing 
Russian vessels to enter Nagasaki harbor. With Krusen- 
stern came Resanoff, a special envoy, and some shipwrecked 
Japanese sailors who had been driven ashore on the coast 
of Siberia. Resanoff asked for the opening of Japan to 
Russian trade. The Japanese refused. In the years 1806 
and 1807 Krusenstern, in retaliation for the refusal, sent 
two small vessels to ravage the coast of Sakhalin and Iturup. 
The next year a Japanese explorer went northward and 
ascertained for the first time, so far as the Japanese were 



ATTEMPTS TO OPEN JAPAN TO TRADE 255 

concerned, that Sakhalen was an island rather than a 
peninsula of the mainland. ^^ In 1811 Captain Golownin, in 
the sloop of war Diana, surveyed the Kurile Islands and 
was made a prisoner by the Japanese. He and sev.eral other 
officers were kept in Japan as prisoners for several years. 
Some of the Japanese improved the opportunity to learn 
the Russian language. In 1849 Nevelskoi, under the direc- 
tion of Count Muravieff, had explored Sakhalen and estab- 
lished a Russian port at Dui.-*^ Meanwhile the Russians 
had for many years maintained a diplomatic and ecclesias- 
tical establishment in Peking and in 1850, by the con- 
vention of Kuldja, had established themselves in a more 
favorable position in China. Japan feared Russia. 

Nor had the advances of England in Asia passed unno- 
ticed among the Japanese. In 1808 Captain Pellew in H. M. 
S. Phaeton, which had already terrorized American shipping 
at Canton, sailed into Nagasaki harbor in search of Dutch 
merchantmen and threatened to burn the Japanese and 
Chinese junks if not supplied with provisions and water. ^^ 
The supplies were forthcoming and the Phaeton left 
abruptly while the Japanese were planning a trap. The 
visit of Captain Pellew had revealed to the Japanese that 
the morale of the army was at low ebb; as a result of the 
humiliation administered by the British captain, several 
Japanese officers committed hari-kari. Five years later Sir 
Stamford Raffles of Singapore fame had attempted to open 
trade with the Japanese, but the Dutch director at 
Deshima * refused to recognize the English rule in Java and 
threatened to expose the British intrigue to the Japanese. 
Raffles sent Dr. Ainslie, a physician, with the expedition 
and he was permitted to remain, being known as an Ameri- 
can. The attempt to open trade for British merchants came 
to nothing and soon afterwards Java was returned to the 
Netherlands. In 1818 Captain Gordon of the British navy 
in a trading brig of 65 tons entered the Bay of Yedo from 
Okhotsk, He was well treated but failed to attain his 

*Deshima is a small island close to tke shore in Nagasaki harbor, where the 
Dutch E. I. Company factory was located. 



256 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

object. The outcome of the Anglo-Chinese War (1839-42) 
created a profound impression in Japan. In 1845 H. T^. 
frigate Samarang visited Nagasaki, and in 1849, five weeks 
after the Preble had left Nagasaki, the British surveying 
ship Mariner visited both Uraga and Shimoda, making 
surveys. 

The French admiral Cecille appeared in Japan in 1846 
shortly after Commodore Biddle left. 

The Dutch trade at Deshima was not in a flourishing 
condition at any time in the nineteenth century. The chief 
profit was made out of the copper which was taken from 
Japan to Java and there comed^ and circulated at a rate 
above its intrinsic value. During the Napoleonic wars the 
Dutch East India Company became extinct and the Dutch 
Government took over the Nagasaki trade in 1817. Ten 
years later the trade was turned over to a new company but 
in 1829 it was returned to the government as being un- 
profitable. The trade connection was retained by the 
Netherlands for sentimental and political rather than for 
commercial reasons. In 1844 William II of the Netherlands 
addressed to the Shogun a personal letter in which he cited 
the Anglo-Chinese War and stated "The future of Japan 
causes us much anxiety." The king explained how the 
sovereigns of Europe after the Napoleonic wars had opened 
to their subjects every channel of trade with a view to the 
preservation of peace. He explained how the introduction 
of steam navigation had shortened distances and said that a 
nation which continued to remain in seclusion could not 
avoid the hostility of other nations. He feared that a dis- 
aster such as had recently come to China was threatening 
the Japanese Empire. Although the Japanese had issued a 
mandate in 1842 ordering kindly treatment for all foreign 
vessels in distress, the Shogun replied to the king that it 
would be impossible to change a policy of seclusion which 
was in accord with 'ancestral law.' Japan refused to make 
a treaty with the Netherlands. ^^ The Dutch agents at 
Deshima kept the Japanese informed as to the progress of 
political events in the outside world. In 1850 they notified 



ATTEMPTS TO OPEN JAPAN TO TRADE 257 

the Japanese authorities that the governor general^ of India 
had secured permission to attempt fo make a treaty with 
Japan, and when the Americans arrived in 1853 the Jap- 
anese were well informed of their approach as well as of the 
outcome of the recent war between the United States and 
Mexico. 

While the official policy of the Tokugawa Government 
remained unaltered, Nagasaki was rapidly becoming a source 
of much enlightenment to the Japanese, and new educa- 
tional impulses were making themselves felt. A European 
form of drill was adopted for the army and the Japanese 
were learning the art of modern ship-building. The science 
of western medicine was also introduced. Deshima became 
a window which not only disclosed a view but also let in no 
inconsiderable amount of light. 

Meanwhile the political position of the Shogun's Gov- 
ernment had been steadily disintegrating. Japan had never 
been less able to repel an attack from a foreign nation than 
in 1853, while the foreign nations had never been so well 
prepared to make one. Another situation favored the pro- 
posed American expedition to Japan : Great Britain, France 
and Russia were becoming occupied with the Crimean 
affairs leaving the Pacific for the moment more to the 
Americans than it had ever been before, or would be again 
for many decades. 

In 1851, after the return of the Preble to the United 
States, interest in Japan reached a high point. Com- 
mander James Glynn, at the request of the President, sub- 
mitted in writing his opinion that a commercial treaty with 
Japan could not be long delayed. A port in Japan was, he 
thought, absolutely necessary for the proposed line of trans- 
Pacific steamers, and he recommended that suitable efforts 
be made "if not peaceably, then by force." Glynn, however, 
counselled that the approach to Japan be made on equal 
terms, as to any European Power. "It may be desirable," 
he remarked, "on some future occasion to justify ourselves 
before the world in the measures used towards Japan besides 
mere argument or entreaty." He recommended that no. 



258 AMEBICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

complaints for past offenses should be made and that the 
British and Dutch governments should be conciliated. 

Accepting completely this wise advice, Secretary of State 
Webster issued a commission to Commodore J. H. Auhck 
(June 10, 1851), commanding the U. S. China Squadron, to 
proceed to Japan for the purpose of negotiating a treaty. 
The commission was never executed because of the illness 
of Aulick and also because of charges lodged against him 
from which he was subsequently cleared by the Navy De- 
partment, but too late to admit him to the Japan Expedi- 
tion. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

1. Morison : "Maritime History of Massachusetts," p. 182. 

2. Archibald Campbell : "A Voyage Around the World," pp. 28-9. 

3. DeBow's Review, Vol. 13, p. 560. 

4. Capt. D. Porter : "Journal of a Cruise in the Pacific in 1812-14" ; 

Callahan : "American Relations in the Pacific and the Far 
East," pp. 25-29. 

5. Richard Hildreth: "Japan as It Was and Is," pp. 446-7. 

Hildreth cites Sir Stamford Raffles, and also a pamphlet by 
Hagendorp, published in Boston, 1800, to prove that the Eliza 
was an English enterprise. 

6. Hist. Col. of Essex Institute, Vol. 2, pp. 287 ff., p. 166 ; Hildreth, 

p. 456. 

7. Batavia Consular Letters, Vol. 1, May 30, July 1, Aug. 12, 1831. 

8. Edmund Roberts Papers (Lib. of Congress). 

9. S. Ex. Doc. 59 :32-l, p. 63. 

10. Roberts Papers (Dept. of State). 

11. Ibid. 

12. "Memoirs of Robert Morrison," Vol. 2, pp. 87, 127-8, 165, 386, 

404, 458. 

13. For full account of the Morrison visit see: "Journal of the 

Perry Expedition (1853-4)" in Trans, of the Asiatic Society 
of Japan, Vol. 37, Part I (1910) p. 11 ; Bibliography of the 
Voyage of the Morrison, in (Chinese Repository, Vol. 6, (1837) ; 
"Claims of Japan and Malaysia upon Christendom," 2 vols. ; 
and "Journal of an Expedition from Singapore to Japan," by 
P. Parker M. D. ; Hildreth, p. 491 ff; "Life and Letters of 
Peter Parker," by Stevens and Marwick. 

14. China Instructions, Vol. 1, Aug. 15, 1844. 

15. H. Doc. 138 -.28-2. 

16. H. Doc. 96 :29-2, p. 28, gives an account of the visit of the 

Manhattan; see also Nitobe's Intercourse between the United 
States and Japan. 

17. China Dispatches, Vol. 3 ; S. Ex. Doc. 59 :32-l, pp. 64 ff. 

18. S. Ex. Doc. 59 :32-l, p. 69. 



f 



ATTEMPTS TO OPEN JAPAN TO TRADE 259 

19. H. Doc. 96 :29-2, p. 33. 

20. S. Ex. Doc. 59:32-1, gives extended account of these incidents; 

Preble correspondence also published separately as H. Ex. Doc. 
84:31-1. 

21. See Clive Day: "Hist, of Amer. Commerce," pp. 498-514 for a 

convenient summary. 

22. H. Doc. 96:29-2; S. Misc. Docs. 80:30-1; Natl. Intelligencer, 

Sept. 6, 1849; H. Misc. Docs. 10:33-2. 

23. H. Rep. 569 :30-l. May 4, 1848 ; S. Ex. Doc. 49 :32-2. 

24. S. Misc. Docs. 80:30-1, p. 66 £f ; H. Eept. 439 :31-1. 

25. Stead: "Japan by the Japanese," pp. 149-50; Hildreth, pjp. 

446-7. 

26. Stead, p. 150. 

27. W. G. Aston: Trans, of Asiatic Society of Japan, Vol. VII, 1879. 

28. D. C. Greene : Trans, of Asiatic Society of Japan, Vol. XXXIV, 

Part IV, pp. 110 ff. 



CHAPTER XIV 

COMMODOEE PEEEY'S POLICY 

The first treaty between the United States and Japan 
was attended by many circumstances dissimilar from those 
which governed the making of the Treaty of Wanghia. 
While Gushing was negotiating at Macao there was already 
a large American trade with China which must not only be 
protected but also left undisturbed ; there was a strong and 
well-defined mercantile tradition as to what constituted 
sound policy. There were other foreign powers, particularly 
Great Britain and France, to be taken into consideration, the 
negotiator was a lawyer, and China had just emerged from 
disastrous war. In Japan it was different: there was no 
trade to protect, no traditions to be reckoned with, and no 
other foreign power to embarrass the proceedings; and 
although he was enjoined to use only peaceful methods, the 
negotiations were in the hands of a naval officer. There 
were also important differences in the temper of the Ameri- 
can people in 1853 as compared with 1844. Within the 
decade the United States had pushed its way across the 
continent to the Pacific Coast, and by means of a successful 
war had extended its boundaries to the Rio Grande. 

The policy of Commodore Perry for the Pacific Ocean 
and for Asia may properly be discussed from three points of 
view: the instructions from the Government of the United 
States which guided Perry; the negotiations of 1853 and 
1854 at Yedo and the resulting treaty; and the policy of 
Perry himself as it appeared in his dispatches and subse- 
quent utterances. We have again to remember that initial 
American policies in Japan, as in China, were largely per- 
sonal. They were framed by not more than three or four 
people and executed by only one — Commodore Perry. 

260 



COMMODORE PERRY'S POLICY 261 

Instructions 

The instructions for the Japanese Expedition underwent 
a distinct development before they were issued in their 
final form to Commodore Perry. The first set of instruc- 
tions had been drafted by Secretary of State Webster and 
given to Commodore Aulick June 10, 1851.^ They were 
similar in tone to, though not so complete as, those given to 
Caleb Cushing eight years before. Perhaps the most signifi- 
cant feature was the omission of all reference to the insults 
which had been offered to the American flag and the indig- 
nities and cruelties suffered by American citizens and 
officers in the Morrison, Biddle, Lagoda, and other affairs. 
Webster's policy was to ignore these affronts and to start 
anew with no thought of reparations or apologies. The 
Webster instructions dwelt most upon the necessity of secur- 
ing supplies of coal in order that steam navigation of the 
Pacific might be established. "We should make another 
appeal," wrote Webster, "to the sovereign of that country 
to ask him to sell to our steamers not the manufactures of 
his artisans, or the results of the toil of his husbandmen, but 
a gift of Providence deposited by the Creator of all things 
in the depths of the Japanese islands for the benefit of the 
human family." Beyond the securing of coal supplies, 
Aulick was authorized to secure a treaty, if possible, similar 
to those with Muscat, Siam and China in which protection 
for shipwrecked and distressed sailors would be stipulated, 
and 'one or more' ports opened to trade. The accompany- 
ing letter from President Fillmore to the Emperor of Japan, 
written by Webster, asked for "friendly commercial inter- 
course and nothing more." 

For the delivery of the letter and the support of the 
negotiations Aulick would have at his disposal on the China 
station a very modest fleet, the steamer Susquehanna and 
two sloops of war, the Plymouth and the Saratoga. It was 
not even certain that all of these could be spared from the 
China coast for an expedition to Japan. 

The instructions issued to Perry by Acting Secretary of 



262 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

State C. M. Conrad, November 5, 1852, were quite different 
in tone and more explicit in details.^ Perry had accepted 
the appointment to the Expedition with some reluctance, 
and having consented to the appointment, appears to have 
been given a large freedom in planning the methods by 
which it was to be carried out. Owing to the illness of 
Webster, Perry was permitted to draft his own instructions 
which were, of course, submitted to the Department of 
State for revision and approval.^ Whether any revision 
actually took place may best be judged by comparing the 
instructions as signed by Conrad with other statements of 
Perry in which his ideas of Far Eastern policy were un- 
folded. At any rate the spirit of Webster had departed 
from the Perry instructions. 

While the objects of the expedition as stated by Webster 
were left practically unchanged — protection for distressed 
American sailors, one or more ports to be opened to trade, 
and the right to purchase coal — the Japanese were described 
as a 'weak and semi-barbarous people' whose conduct 
towards shipwrecked sailors had brought them into the 
category of those nations which "may justly be considered 
as the common enemy of mankind." The duty of protecting 
Americans who navigated those seas was one "that can no 
longer be deferred." "While it is true," read the instruc- 
tions, "that every nation undoubtedly has the right to deter- 
mine for itself the extent to which it will hold intercourse 
with other nations, the exercise of such a right imposes 
duties which cannot justly be disregarded." The disregard 
of the duty to care for distressed seamen was intolerable. 
The instructions contained a very significant paragraph in 
which the relations of the United States to Japan were con- 
sidered in the light of the respective position of the two 
nations on the Pacific Ocean — the first comprehensive state- 
ment of the basis of an American policy for the Pacific. 
This paragraph read : 

''Recent events — the navigation of the ocean by steam, the acquisi- 
tion and rapid settlement by this country of a vast territory on the 
Pacific, the discovery of gold in that region, the rapid communication 



COMMODORE PERRY'S POLICY 263 

established across the Isthmus which separates the two oceans — have 
practically brought the countries of the east in closer proximity to 
our own; although the consequences of these events have scarcely 
begun to be felt, the intercourse between them has already greatly in- 
creased and no limits can be assigned to its future extension." 

More significant than the statement of the objects to be 
obtained were the methods to be employed. At the time the 
instructions were issued it was expected that the fleet would 
consist of five steamers and six or more sailing vessels — by 
far the largest American fleet that had ever appeared in 
Eastern waters. This formidable fleet was to be used as a 
'persuader/ to use the word of President Fillmore many 
years later. It was assumed that "arguments or persuasion 
addressed to this people, unless they are seconded by some 
imposing manifestation of power, will be utterly unavail- 
ing." Perry was instructed to proceed to some point on 
the coast of Japan with his whole force, to assure the 
Japanese of the friendly feelings of the United States, but 
to bring up the cases of the Morrison, the Lag o da and the 
Lawrence, and to explain to the authorities that the United 
States desired 'positive assurance' that in the future such 
insults and indignities would not be repeated. 

These desires on the part of the United States were to 
be supported with explanations that in the United States 
religion is free and that Japan need have no fear that the 
American Government would, as the older European nations 
had done two centuries before, seek to interfere with the 
religion of Japan. Perry was also to disarm the fears and 
prejudices of the Japanese by explaining that the United 
States was quite separate from and very independent of 
Great Britain whose recent war with China had been alarm- 
ing to Japan. The Japanese were to have explained to them 
that Japan and the United States had become neighbors 
across the Pacific Ocean and that the choice lay with the 
Japanese as to whether the two nations should be friendly 
neighbors. "The President desires to live in peace and 
friendship with the Emperor" ; but "no friendship can long 
exist between them unless Japan should change her policy 



264 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

and cease to act towards the people of the United States as 
if they were her enemies." 

If such arguments did not secure any relaxation of the 
poHcy of exclusion, or even any assurance of humane treat- 
ment for seamen, Perry was instructed to "change his tone, 
and to inform them in the most unequivocal terms that it is 
the determination of this government to insist that here- 
after all citizens or vessels of the United States that may 
be wrecked on their coasts or driven by stress of weather into 
their harbors shall, so long as they are compelled to remain 
there, be treated with humanity; and that if any acts of 
cruelty should hereafter be practiced upon citizens of this 
country, whether by the government or the inhabitants of 
Japan, they will be severely chastised." 

It is obvious that such instructions admitted of very 
wide latitude in interpretation and therefore, although 
Perry was "invested with large discretionary powers" he was 
cautioned to bear in mind that he was to avoid all provoca- 
tion. The mission was to be pacific in character and was 
not to resort to force unless in self-defense "in the protec- 
tion of the vessels and crews under his command, or to 
resent an act of personal violence offered to himself or to 
one of his officers." The President, Perry was reminded, 
had no power to declare war. 

f A new letter from President Fillmore to the Emperor, a 
revision of the Webster letter which had been given to 
Aulick, written by Edward Everett, was entrusted to Perry. 
It was broadly similar to yet more imperative than the 
Webster letter, specifying friendship, commerce, access to 
coal and provisions, and protection for distressed sailors as 
the objects. As for the last mentioned the letter stated, 
"we are very much in earnest about this." It was also sug- 
gested that Japan might, if not yet wholly willing to aban- 
don the policy of exclusion, at least try the experiment of a 
suspension of the policy for five or ten years, making a 
treaty which would be terminable at the end of a given 
period. 

The Perry Expedition, like that of Edmund Roberts, and 



COMMODORE PERRY'S POLICY 265 

unlike the Gushing and the proposed Aulick missions, 
carried a generous supply of presents for the Emperor, 
including a small steam engine such as had been ordered for 
Roberts, and suggested for Gushing. 

Negotiations and Treaty 

The Japan Expedition, greatly reduced as to size, con- 
sisting of only two steamers and two sloops of war, anchored 
in the Bay of Yedo off Uraga on July 8, 1853, and remained 
in the bay nine days.** Having in mind the firing on the 
Morrison in 1837, and the kidnapping of the Russian Gap- 
tain Golownin in 1811, Perry ordered the decks to be cleared 
for action and the guns shotted as the squadron sailed up 
the bay.^ The fleet was anchored with a view to possible 
attack and never for one moment during either the first 
or the second visit, were either officers or crews permitted to 
remove themselves so far from the vessels that they could 
not have been protected by the guns. 

Perry adopted a policy of magnifying his own office and 
dignity which was fully in accord with the experience gained 
by Edmund Roberts, Galeb Gushing and Commodore Bid- 
die. He permitted no friendly approaches by minor officials 
and surrounded himself with a majesty which the Oriental 
always recognizes and appreciates. 

To orders to retire and go to Nagasaki the commodore 
was deaf; efforts to place the fleet under the guard of 
Japanese boats and soldiers were met by the assertion that 
if the Japanese authorities did not remove the guards he 
would remove them by force; and when the Japanese be- 
came evasive about receiving the President's letter. Perry 
threatened that if a suitable person was not appointed to 
receive the documents he would go ashore with a sufiicient 
force and deliver them himself. While the Japanese were 
considering this threat Perry ordered surveying boats, well 
manned and armed, to begin surveys of the bay and harbor, 
being careful not to go outside the range of the guns. When 
requested to withdraw these surveying boats, Perry refused. 



266 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

Indeed the Mississippi, the flag-ship, was sent still farther 
up the bay in the direction of Yedo and the surveys of the 
approach to the capital were extended. The commodore 
explained that these surveys were necessary because he 
intended to return in the spring with a 'larger force.' ^ 

The Japanese were notified that if the President's letter 
to the Emperor were not duly received and replied to, he 
would consider his country insulted and would "not hold 
himself accountable for the consequences." Before such 
threats and intimidation the Japanese could not well do 
otherwise than yield, and the letter was received with suit- 
able ceremony on shore, Perry delivering it to "the Prince 
of Idzu, first counsellor of the Emperor and his coadjutor, 
the Prince of Iwami." Perry was then ordered to depart 
but instead of obeying he immediately ordered the whole 
squadron to get under way in the direction of Yedo, and in 
the Mississippi Perry went to within seven miles of the 
city. Mindful of his instructions, however. Perry paused 
just short of the point where his movements might be 
regarded as provocation, and retired from Japanese waters, 
having notified the Japanese that he would return in the 
spring with a larger force to receive an answer to the Presi- 
dent's letter and the proposals for a treaty. 

Before his return Perry had established a depot with 
large supplies of coal at Napa,* on the island of Great Lew 
Chew, and had directed Commander John Kelly of the 
Plymouth to proceed to the Bonin group of islands, and 
formally take possession of the Baily islands in the name of 
the United States. This mission was accomplished October 
30, 1853, the principal island being named 'Hillsborough' 
and the port christened 'Newport,' according to Perry's 
directions. That these islands had been named and claimed 
for Great Britain by Captain Beechy in 1827 in no way dis- 
turbed the commodore. 

The report of the first visit of the American expedition 
to Japan, as well as the tenor of some of Perry's dispatches 

♦The spelling is varied : the Japanese now spell it Naha, The Oreat Lew 
Chew is called Okinawa (Great Napa), 



COMMODORE PERRY'S POLICY 267 

had a somewhat disturbing effect in Washington where the 
Pierce administration had succeeded that of Fillmore since 
Perry's departure for the East, By direction of the Presi- 
dent, Secretary of the Navy, J. C. Dobbin, immediately 
cautioned Perry again that his mission was to be one of 
merely peaceful negotiation and that no violence must be 
resorted to except for self-defense/ 

The fleet, somewhat enlarged, but not so large as had 
been originally planned by the Fillmore administration, 
returned to the Bay of Yedo February 13, 1854. The Jap- 
anese Government had decided to meet the returning expe- 
dition with conciliation, but the policy proposed was to 
prevent as far as possible the approach of the Americans in 
the direction of Yedo. Perry, on the other hand, was deter- 
mined to advance beyond the anchorage at Uraga where the 
negotiations of the preceding summer had taken place. 
When the Japanese attempted to draw him back to Kami- 
kura for a conference, he asserted that he intended to go to 
Yedo. A compromise was effected by which the conference 
was held at Yokohama, which is less than twenty miles 
from Yedo (Tokio).^ 

The reply to the President's letter contained the surpris- 
ing and significant statement "for us to continue attached 
to the ancient laws, seems to misunderstand the spirit of 
the age." The Japanese were willing to open the port of 
Nagasaki to the Americans under very stringent regulations 
similar to those under which the Dutch and Chinese trade 
had been conducted, and they also proposed to open a 
second port to the Americans at the end of five years. They 
were also prepared to give promises as to the reception of 
shipwrecked sailors. However, they stipulated that what- 
ever Americans came to Japan should be subjected to 
restraints which amounted to little less than imprisonment. 
Perry thereupon increased his demands: he would have 
nothing to do with Nagasaki where traditions as to the 
treatment of foreigners might always operate as an embar- 
rassment to intercourse, just as similar traditions at Canton 
were even then causing trouble. He asserted that he desired 



268 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

a treaty similar to that existing between the United States 
and China and that he desired the opening of no less than 
three ports immediately and two more within a short time. 
He intimated that if Japan did not make these concessions 
the United States might decide to send still more ships as 
well as more stringent instructions. Notwithstanding the 
clashes of opinion the negotiations proceeded with cordiality 
and courtesy, and the treaty was signed March 31, 1854. 

The treaty presented a singular contrast to the methods 
by which it had been obtained, so much of a contrast that 
one is justified in finding the actual American policy in the 
treaty and in minimizing, as so many have done, the signifi- 
cance of the method. Perry was so sure of the harmless- 
ness of the treaty and even of its direct benefit to Japan 
that he felt able to disregard the customary methods of 
American diplomacy. On the other hand one cannot help 
but feel that in the art of negotiation the Japanese had 
surpassed the naval diplomat. 

The Japanese had offered to open Nagasaki on terms 
similar to those endured by the Dutch. Perry had shown 
them the Gushing treaty with China and demanded three 
ports immediately — either Uraga in Hondo or Kagoshima 
in Kyushu ; Matsumai in Yezo ; and Napa in the Lew Chews 
— with the promise of two more ports at a later date. By 
the treaty the Americans were allowed to enter Hakodate, a 
smaller town but a better harbor near Matsumai, and 
Shimoda on the southern coast of Hondo not far from the 
Bay of Yedo. Shimoda was entirely without value as a 
port of trade and the harbor also was of less utility than 
was supposed by Perry. Napa was ignored in the treaty 
and Perry came to the conclusion before he left China that 
the Lew Chews were really more closely related to China 
than to Japan. Permanent residence for Americans at either 
of the two strictly Japanese ports was not contemplated in 
the treaty although a consul was permitted to reside at the 
inaccessible Shimoda. While those who temporarily visited 
these ports were not to be subjected to such humiliating 
surveillance as the Japanese had at first proposed, the trade 



COMMODORE PERRY'S POLICY 269 

was to be on a cash basis, specie in exchange for ship-sup- 
plies, and was to be supervised exclusively by the govern- 
ment officials. In fact the treaty was hardly more than a 
shipwreck convention, the necessities of distressed mariners 
being amply provided for. It bore no resemblance to and 
could stand no comparison with the Treaty of Wanghia. 

The treaty contained, however, a most-favored-nation 
clause and there was one very significant omission. Perry 
had asked for no extraterritorial rights whatever. It has 
been claimed and there is no reason to question the assertion 
that the absence of such a provision was due to Dr. S. Wells 
Williams who accompanied the expedition as Chinese inter- 
preter.^ Williams had had an opportunity to watch the 
operation of extraterritoriality in China and was firmly per- 
suaded that it was such an evil as a strong nation ought not 
to force upon a weak one. Perry also was familiar with 
the situation in China and was apparently willing to agree 
with Williams without question. It is in the omission of 
this provision in the Japanese treaty that the true character 
of Perry is to be read. He would bluster, threaten, even 
intimidate, but he would not assume the responsibility of 
inflicting a possible evil on the Japanese. 

The treaty quite failed to grant access to the supplies 
of coal which had been the very first object, in the minds 
of many, for the expedition. Hakodate was far removed 
from the route of trans-Pacific travel, and even before Perry 
left Japan he acknowledged in a separate agreement with 
the Japanese that coal could not be procured at Shimoda.^" 

Having pointed out the relatively small part of Perry's 
original demands which had been granted, and the inten- 
tional omission of extraterritorial rights which the foreigner 
in China had already come to regard as too useful to be 
dispensed with, we must however return to the fact that 
the treaty had been obtained without firing a shot, and that 
it left no rancor. It was in fact what its language claimed — 
a treaty of friendship. It was far more friendly to Japan 
than the Cushing treaty was to China. It would not be 
fair, however, to award the credit for the treaty exclusively 



270 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

to the Americans. Perry departed in entire ignorance of the 
extent to which he had been aided by circumstances and 
influences within the Empire, and he did not live to realize 
the extent to which his visit had intensified the struggle 
already begun and not to be finished until the office of the 
Shogun and feudalism were both abolished.^ ^ 

Perry's Proposals for Far Eastern Policy 

Viewed as a step in the development of American policy 
in Asia the treaty of 1854, considered by itself, presents 
some puzzling questions. When compared with the Gushing 
treaty with China ten years earUer it would appear to have 
been a backward step, and this notwithstanding the great 
display of force which had attended the negotiations. If 
we were to hmit our examination to the treaty itself, Perry 
would seem to have been badly outwitted by the Japanese 
or, at the moment when he might have gathered in the fruits 
of peaceful victory, to have been stricken with indecision 
and weakness. He had secured very little. It is not fair, 
however, to stop with a comparison of the treaties. The 
poHcy of Commodore Perry was much broader and far more 
aggressive than is indicated by the terms of the treaty. The 
Perry Expedition, viewed as a whole, marks something new 
in policy when compared with that of Caleb Cushing at 
Macao. Cushing had devoted himself exclusively to the 
protection of American mercantile interests in China; Perry 
felt that he was laying the foundations for an American 
commercial empire in Asia and on the Pacific. Indeed, 
Perry appears to have been the first American in official 
position to view not merely the commercial but also the 
pohtical problems of Asia and the Pacific as a unity. 

Perry looked into the future and considered American 
commercial interests in the Far East from the standpoint 
of a naval strategist. There must be an ample number of 
ports of refuge, trade bases, and even points from which 
protection might be afforded in case of war with some 
European power. 



COMMODORE PERRY'S POLICY 



271 




■a a 



272 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

'''It is idle to suppose," wrote Perry after his return to the United 
States, "that because the policy of the United States has hitherto 
been to avoid by all means possible any coalition, or even connection 
A^ath the political acts of other nations, we can always escape from 
the responsibilities which our growing wealth and power must inevi- 
tably fasten upon us. The duty of protecting our vast and rapidly 
growing commerce will make it not only a measure of wisdom but 
of positive necessity, to provide timely preparation for events which 
must, in the ordinary course of things, transpire in the east. In the 
development of the future, the destinies of our nation must assume 
conspicuous attitudes ; we cannot expect to be free from the ambitious 
longings of increased power, which are the natural concomitants of 
national success." ^ 

He looked forward to the time when there would be on 
the Pacific and in Asia a large number of American 'settle- 
ments/ which 'would be offshoots from us rather than, 
strictly speaking, colonies.' These commercial settlements, 
as he termed them, which he thought ought not to be forti- 
fied because fortification would arouse the antagonism of 
European nations, would 'be vitally necessary to the con- 
tinued success of our commerce in those regions.' 

In one of his dispatches he went even so far as to speak 
of the necessity of extending the 'territorial jurisdiction' of 
the United States beyond the limits of the western conti- 
nent. "I assume," he wrote, "the responsibility of urging 
the expediency of establishing a foothold in this quarter of 
the globe, as a measure of positive necessity to the sustain- 
ment of our maritime rights in the east." ^^ 

Perry designated. three points where he wished to see a 
beginning made. They were the Bonin Islands, Great Lew 
Chew, and Formosa. He also intimated that the United 
States ought to extend its "national friendship and protec- 
tion" to Siam, Cambodia, Cochin China, parts of Borneo and 
Sumatra, and many of the islands of the eastern archipel- 
ago.^"^ No American before his time, and few after it, ever 
had such an extensive ambition. Herein lies the explana- 
tion of the inadequacies of the treaty with Japan. Perry 
believed that he was taking but the first step in a very large 
program which in its entirety could be .realized only by 
degrees. A treaty of friendship with Japan was but a detail 
in this program. 



COMMODORE PERRY'S POLICY 273 

Commodore Perry left us in no doubt as to the nature 
of the policy he would have liked to pursue. On the out- 
ward voyage from the United States he evolved a plan which 
he laid before the Secretary of the Navy in great detail. ^^ 
He would occupy the Lew Chew Islands ''for the accommo- 
dation of our ships of war and for the safe resort of mer- 
chant vessels of whatever nation." This, he thought, 
''would be a measure not only justified by the strictest rules 
of moral law, but what is also to be considered by the laws 
of stern necessity." 

Perry was looking forward to a time when the United 
States would be engaged in a decisive contest with Great 
Britain for the control of the Pacific. He wrote: 

"When we look at the possessions on the east of our great maritime 
rival, England, and of the constant and rapid increase of their forti- 
fied ports, we should be admonished of the necessity of prompt 
measures on our part. By reference to the map of the world it will 
be seen that Great Britain is already in possession of the most im- 
portant points in the East India and China seas, and especially with 
reference to the China seas. . . . Fortunately the Japanese and many 
other islands of the Pacific are still left untouched by this uncon- 
scionable government; and some of them lay in a route of a great 
commerce which is destined to become of great importance to the 
United States. No time should be lost in adopting active measures 
to secure a sufficient number of ports of refuge. And hence I shall 
look with much anxiety for the arrival of the Powhatan and the other 
vessel to be sent me." 

In reply to the above described proposal Secretary of 
State Everett replied for the President, February 15, 1853, 
approving the occupation of the principal ports of the Lew 
Chews, which were assumed to belong to Japan, in case ports 
could not be obtained in Japan proper without resort to 
force.^® Everett however cautioned Perry to take no sup- 
plies without paying for them and to "make no use of 
force, except in the last resort for defense, if attacked, and 
for self-preservation." 

On his first visit to Japan, Perry made Great Lew Chew 
the rendezvous for his squadron and successfully negotiated 
for a coal depot at Napa which had the best harbor. Dur- 
ing the following autumn he kept one or more of the vessels 



274 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

of the fleet stationed there constantly, and just before his 
return to Japan he wrote to the Secretary of the Navy 
(January 25, 1854) reaffirming his intention of placing 
Great Lew Chew under the American flag. He wrote: 

"It is my intention, should the Japanese Government refuse to 
negotiate, or to assign a port of resort for our merchant and whaling 
ships, to take under surveillance of the American flag upon the 
ground of reclamation for insults and injuries committed upoii 
American citizens, this island of Great Lew Chew, a dependency of 
the empire, to be held under restraint, until the decision of my govern- 
ment shall be known, whether to avow or disavow my acts." " 

K.hlMjfq --!>.■ 'J^/'zl 

To this declaration Secretary of State -Dobin replied 
(May 39, 1854) after consultation with President Pierce, 
that the project was 'embarrassing.' 

"The President," he stated, "is disinclined, without the authority 
of Congress, to take and retain possession of an island in that distant 
country, particularly unless more urgent and potent reasons demanded 
it than now exist. If, in the future, resistance should be offered and 
threatened it would be rather mortifying to surrender the island, if 
once seized, and rather inconvenient and expensive to maintain a 
force there to retain it." ^^ 

The President hoped that the contingency of occupation 
would not arise. In these words of hesitation and caution 
the President appears to have had in mind Perry's warning 
that in case the necessary preliminary steps at the Lew 
Chews were not taken immediately "the Russians, or 
French, or probably the English" would anticipate the de- 
sign. Perry had urged that 

"though it does not belong to the spirit of our institutions to extend 
our dominion beyond the sea, positive necessity requires that we 
should protect our commercial interests in this remote part of the 
world, and in doing so, to resort to measures, however strong, to coun- 
teract the schemes of powers less scrupulous than ourselves." 

Perry's plans embraced also the Bonin Islands which lay 
about five hundred miles south of Japan and in the direct 
path of navigation between Honolulu and Shanghai. Be- 
fore advancing upon Japan at all Perry personally visited 
these islands and purchased for the Navy Department a 
"suitable spot for the erection of offices, wharves, coal-sheds, 



COMMODORE PERRY'S POLICY 275 

etc." ^^ at Port Lloyd on Peel Island. Four months later, 
by Perry's order, Commander Kelly of the Plymouth took 
formal possession of the southern group of islands which 
had been named Baily's Islands by Captain Beechey of 
H. M. S. Blossom, in 1827, but which Perry rechristened 
Coffin Islands in honor of an American, Captain Coffin, who 
had visited the islands four years earlier than Beechey.^^ 
Perry defended this action as well as his other hostile acts 
on his first visit to Japan on the ground that it was necessary 
to work on the fears of the rulers of Japan. He did not, 
however, disguise his satisfaction at having secured an 
important port of refuge for the trans-Pacific trade about 
which he was so optimistic. 

This unceremonious and brusque appropriation of a 
portion of the Bonin Islands was not permitted to pass 
unchallenged by Great Britain. While Perry was lying at 
Hongkong and gathering his forces for the second visit to 
Japan, Sir John Bonham, British Superintendent of Trade, 
was directed by Lord Clarendon to interview Perry and 
obtain an explanation. The approach to the subject was 
tactful and conciliatory as was suited to the occasion when 
the Crimean War was in progress and the Russian Admiral, 
Count Pontiatin, was in Chinese waters and very friendly 
with Commodore Perry. Perry set up a counter claim to 
the islands, resting it on the double ground that Captain 
Coffin had preceded Captain Beechey to the island by at 
least three years, and on the fact that since 1830 a group of 
settlers from the Sandwich Islands, in which the Americans 
outnumbered the British two to one, had lived at Port 
Lloyd.^^ Perry put forward his contention in a conciliatory 
spirit and suggested that Great Britain and the United 
States ought to cooperate rather than to oppose one another 
in the establishment of trans-Pacific steam navigation. 
Perry had in mind for the islands the creation of a free port 
which would be very similar, in matters of trade, to Hong- 
kong. 

In reporting Bonham's inquiry to ¥/ashington, Perry 
reaffirmed his general policy. He stated : 



276 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

"I shall in no way allow of any infringement upon our national 
rights; on the contrary, I believe that this is the moment to assume 
a position in the east which will make the power and influence of 
the United States felt in such a way as to give greater importance to 
those rights which, among eastern nations, are generally estimated 
by the extent of the military force exhibited." 

The conciliatory spirit in which the Japanese authorities 
met Perry on the occasion of his second visit to the Bay of 
Yedo put an entirely new face on the situation and robbed 
Perry of most of the reasons for his previously declared 
policy. The Bonin Islands were forgotten, and when Japan 
in 1862 proposed to assert a claim to them which antedated 
by centuries the claims of both Great Britain and the 
United States, both powers relinquished all pretensions to 
the islands, which were, in fact, worthless. Perry concluded 
a 'compact' with the king of the Lew Chews (July 11, 1854) 
a few months after signing the treaty with Japan, and the 
document was duly ratified by the Senate a few days after 
the ratification of the treaty with Japan.-^ This compact 
treated the Lew Chews as entirely independent of both 
Japan and China and merely secured protection of ship- 
wrecked sailors, and the opening of Napa as a port of sup- 
plies and trade. When, in 1872, Japan reasserted her claim 
to the islands the United States merely stipulated that 
Japan should become directly responsible to the United 
States for the maintenance of such rights for Americans as 
the islands had conceded by treaty to the United States. 

When the American squadron was being dispersed after 
the second visit to Japan, Perry ordered two vessels to 
Manila and to Formosa. The object in visiting the latter 
point was to investigate the persistent reports that ship- 
wrecked American sailors were held in captivity on the 
islands and also to investigate the reported coal mines. No 
sailors were found, but coal of good quality and in abun- 
dance was discovered. No active steps were taken at the 
time but upon Perry's return to the United States he recom- 
mended that "the United States alone should take the 
initiative" in "this magnificent island." -^ We shall hear 
more of this project in the next chapter. 



COMMODORE PERRY'S POLICY 277 

We have now before us two distinct, though not always 
distinctly separated, proposals for American policy in Asia. 
On the one hand is the policy of the Treaty of Wanghia 
which repudiated the idea of territorial occupation of Asiatic 
territory and sought to find sufficient protection for Ameri- 
can interests in international law and treaties. On the 
other, we have the policy of Perry which, while no less 
peaceful as to ultimate purpose, was based on the assump- 
tions that some such territorial occupation as the British 
had accomplished at Hongkong was essential to the protec- 
tion of American interests, and that to secure concessions 
the Asiatic states must be intimidated. Between the two 
pohcies we find Humphrey Marshall and Robert M. McLane 
wavering, seeking to sustain and build up the sovereign 
power of China to a point where it would in fact be able 
to assume effectively the obligations of the Gushing treaty, 
and yet proposing military and naval intervention in the 
Taiping Rebellion for the purpose of throwing the entire 
Chinese Empire open to the trade of all nations. It now 
becomes our interesting duty to trace the fate of these two 
policies in the course of the next fifteen years. What atti- 
tude President Pierce and Secretary of State Marcy would 
have taken in the face of a violent issue requiring a definite 
choice between these policies it is difficult to say. It is, 
however, quite clear that the surrender of Japan to the 
peaceful demands of Commodore Perry in 1854 was a more 
important factor in the determination of American policy 
in Asia than any positive conviction enunciated by the 
American Government. The policy of Pierce and Marcy, 
while inclining towards that of Webster and Gushing, was 
really opportunist. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

1. S. Ex. Doc. 59 :32-l, p. 80. 

2. S. Ex. Doc. 34:33-2. 

3. Griffis : "Perry." p. 303. 

4. The primary sources of importance for the Perry Expedition are : 

the Perry Correspondence, S. Ex. Doc. 34:33-2; "Journal of the 
Perry Expedition (1853-4)," by S. Wells Williams, Trans, of 



278 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

Asiatic 8oc. of Japan, Vol. XXXVII, Part II, 1910 ; "Jap.an 
and Around the World," by J. W. Spalding; "Matthew Cal- 
braith Perry," by Wm. Elliot Griffis; "Perry's Japan," by 
Francis L. Hawks ; and "Narrative of the Japan Expedition," 
published as H. Ex. Doc. 97 :33-2. 

5. Spalding, p. 143. 

6. S. Ex. Doc. 34:33-2, pp. 43 fi. 

7. Ihid., p. 57. 

8. Ihid., pp. 116 ff. 

9. Williams' Journal, p. vii. 

10. S. Ex. Doc. 34 :33-2, p. 161. 

11. "History of Japan from 1853 to 1869," Kinse Shiriaku, translated 

by E. M. Satow; "Progress of Japan, 1853-71," by J. H. 
Gubbins ; "Intercourse between the United States and Japan," 
by Inazo Nitobe; "International Position of Japan as a Great 
Power," by Seiji G. Hishida. 

12. "Narrative of the Japan Expedition," Vol. 2, pp. 173 ff. 

13. S. Ex. Doc. 34:33-2, p. 81. 

14. Narrative of Jap. Exp. op. cit. 

15. S. Ex. Doc. 34:33-2, pp. 12-4. 

16. Ihid., p. 15. 

17. Ihid., p. 109. 

18. Ihid., p. 112. 

19. Ihid., p. 39. 

20. Ihid., pp. 66-7 ; Chas. Oscar Paullin : U. 8. Naval Institute Pro^ 

ceedings, 1911, p. 269-70. 

21. Ihid., pp. 80-86. 

22. Ihid., p. 174. 

23. "Narrative of Japan Exped." op. cit. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE POLICY OF DR. PETER PARKER— FORMOSA 

Dr. Peter Parker had arrived in China in 1834 as a 
medical missionary under the auspices of the American 
Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.^ He was a 
native of Massachusetts, had been a student at Amherst 
College and had been graduated at Yale in 1831. He 
studied theology at Yale Divinity School and then took a 
course in medicine in Philadelphia. He opened the 
Ophthalmic Hospital at Canton the year, after his arrival 
and thus became the founder of medical missions in China. 
The hospital won the support of hong merchants and 
foreigners alike, and Dr. Parker, who was of amiable disposi- 
tion, became a very popular and trusted person. He was a 
member of the Morrison expedition to Japan, and was in 
Washington in 1840 when the first discussions with reference 
to the Anglo-Chinese War took place. He married a distant 
relative of Daniel Webster's while on this visit to the United 
States, thus forming an alliance which made his entrance 
into government service especially easy. He acted as one of 
the interpreters for Caleb Cushing in 1844, and the next year 
he was appointed Chinese secretary and interpreter to the 
newly created legation. Dr. Parker thus became the one 
element of continuity in the diplomatic relations of the 
United States with China during the many replacements 
and resignations of the following ten years and he was at 
length appointed (September, 1855) Commissioner. He was 
the only Commissioner or Minister ever appointed to China 
who could speak, read or write the Chinese language, and 
with two exceptions he was the only person ever appointed 
by way of promotion from a subordinate position in the 
diplomatic service in China. 

279 



280 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

Dr. Parker's service, which lasted less than two years, 
was characterized by three objects: the accomplishment of 
the revision of the Gushing treaty; the achievement of an 
entente cordiale with Great Britain and France for the pur- 
suit of a cooperative policy; and the acquisition of the 
island of Formosa for the United States. 



Treaty Revision — Destruction of Barrier Forts 

The time for the revision of the treaty falling legally due 
in 1856, Dr. Parker was supplied with full powers to conduct 
the negotiations and was instructed to seek to obtain three 
concessions: (1) residence for a diplomatic officer at Peking; 
(2) unlimited extension of trade; (3) the removal of every 
restriction to personal liberty.^ So much impressed was the 
American Government, in the face of the steady opposition 
of the Chinese to all reform and even to full compliance 
with the treaties, with the necessity of cooperation with 
the other treaty powers, that Dr. Parker was authorized 
to proceed to his post by way of London and Paris and to 
confer with Lord Clarendon and with the French Ministry 
of Foreign Affairs with a view to the adoption of a common 
policy in China. He was, however, entirely without author- 
ity to do more than have conversations. The commis- 
sioner's enthusiasm for common action may have been a 
little misleading to the British and the French, encouraging 
them to expect in the way of cooperation, very much more 
than the Government of the United States was prepared to 
give. 

Of an interview with Lord Clarendon, October 26, 1855,^ 
Dr. Parker reported : 

"I remarked that it being the desire of the United States Govern- 
ment that the same concurrent policy and action which hitherto had 
so happily characterized the three powers in China should continue, I 
was solicitous to see his lordship on the subject, . . ." 

In the conclusion of the interview Clarendon remarked ; 
"I shall have great pleasure, on the opening of Parliament 



THE POLICY OF DR. PETER PARKER— FORMOSA 281 

to speak of the triple alliance." Parker himself was 
thoroughly in favor of such a formal arrangement. 

In Paris the American commissioner had a similar inter- 
view at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and then set out for 
China where he arrived in December, 1855. He was deter- 
mined to take "high ground" in securing the new treaty, but 
Commissioner Yeh continued his insolent, unbending atti- 
tude and even refused to hold an interview with Parker. 
The American commissioner demanded and threatened, but 
in vain. To Sir John Bowring and to the French represen- 
tative Parker proposed joint energetic action but his pro- 
gram and his methods did not commend themselves to 
either of these gentlemen.* Parker had apparently not 
made a very good impression in either London or Paris. 
The British, at least, had determined to proceed slowly and 
run no risk of a second rebuff such as had been administered 
to Bowring and McLane at the mouth of the Pei-ho in 1854. 

Having failed to see the Viceroy at Canton Parker pro- 
ceeded to Foochow where he was able to hold an interview 
with the Governor General, to whom he entrusted for deliv- 
ery at Peking the letter from the President to the Emperor 
which contained the request for treaty revision. Some 
weeks later this letter was returned to the commissioner, 
the seals broken and with other marks of careless handling 
and of disrespect. Parker was directed to present the letter 
to Viceroy Yeh for transmission to Peking. The return of- 
the letter Parker regarded as a national insult and he would 
have proceeded to the mouth of the Pei-ho in a war-vessel 
to demand explanations as well as to open treaty negotia- 
tions had not an accident to the San Jacinto deprived him 
of a means of conveyance. 

In the latter part of October Admiral Seymour (British) 

*Cordier enumerated the points in Dr. Parker's program of revision as: (1) 
residence of tlie Frencli, Britisli and American ministers at Peking, and the 
residence of Chinese ministers at Paris, London and Washington ; (2) unlimited 
extension of trade; (3) universal liberty of opinion for the Chinese; (4) reform 
of the Chinese courts of justice. These were, presumably, points which Dr. 
Parker discussed with Count Waleski, French Minister of Foreign Affairs, when 
in Paris in the fall of 1855. They seem to have been discussed also with Sir 
John Bowring. The stipulations for the reform of the Chinese courts of jus- 
tice, and for the residence of Chinese ministers in Paris, London and Washing- 
ton, which were ridiculed alike by contemporaries and historians, were quite 
unauthorized, and in fact were never presented to the Government of China.* 



282 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

had breached the walls of Canton as a result of the unwill- 
ingness of Yeh to make the required amends for an alleged 
insult to the British flag in the 'Arrow Affair,' and for a few 
hours had occupied the Viceroy's yamen. During the early 
part of November a state of intermittent warfare was main- 
tained. At the request of Yeh, who declared that he could 
no longer protect the foreigners of neutral nations, the 
Americans decided to withdraw from Canton. As Com- 
mander Foote of the American Navy was on his way up to 
Canton on the 15th of November to escort the Americans 
down the river, he was fired on by the Barrier Forts which, 
upon the withdrawal of the British, had been reoccupied by 
the Chinese. The next day Commodore James Armstrong, 
commanding officer of the American naval forces on the 
China station, ordered the destruction of the Barrier Forts, 
and within the next two days this was accomplished. This 
action was hailed with delight, not only by the Americans 
but by the English as well, for it seemed to indicate that at 
last the Government of the United States would be com- 
pelled to adopt towards China a more energetic policy. Yeh 
did not fail to see the danger of the situation, and on the 
5th of December rendered a complete apology.^ 

Greatly stirred by these events as well as stung by the 
rebuffs of the Chinese authorities, and the recollections of 
being called for more than twenty years a ''foreign devil," 
Dr. Parker addressed to Marcy a comprehensive dispatch 
(December 12, 1856) in which he offered the most extensive 
program yet proposed for the settlement of the affairs of 
the treaty powers in China. He suggested : 

"Were the three representatives of England, France and America, 
on presenting themselves at the Pei-ho, in case of their not being 
welcomed to Peking, to say, the French flag will be hoisted in Corea, 
the English again at Chusan, and the United States in Formosa, and 
there remain till satisfaction for the past and a right understanding 
for the future are granted ; but, being granted, these possessions shall 
instantly be restored, negotiation would no longer be obstructed, and 
the most advantageous and desirable results to all concerned secured." 

He admitted that such a novel program should be under- 
taken only as a 'last resort.' ^ 



THE POLICY OF DR. PETER PARKER— FORMOSA 283 

The events as well as the recommendations of Dr. Parker 
for the occupation of Chinese territory were very disquiet- 
ing to President Pierce and Secretary of State Marcy. 
There had been reported in the London papers another inci- 
dent in connection with the occupation of Canton which 
was equally disturbing. It was stated that the American 
Consul at Hongkong, James Keenan, had not only been 
present with the attacking British forces at Canton, but 
that he had actually carried the American flag over the wall 
into the city. No mention of this event had been made in 
the official reports to the Department of State. The Presi- 
dent, while withholding severe censure from Commodore 
Armstrong, did regard the sending of the boat the San 
Jacinto to make soundings near the forts at a time of so 
much disturbance as not a 'discreet act.' "From a cursory 
reading of the documents which have been received," wrote 
Marcy to Parker,'^ 

"I think he is inclined to regret that there had not been more 
caution on the part of our naval force in the beginning, and more 
forbearance in the subsequent steps. The British Government evi- 
dently has objects beyond those contemplated by the United States, 
and we ought not to be drawn along with it, however anxious it may 
be for our cooperation. The President sincerely hopes that you, as 
well as our naval commander, will be able to do all that is required 
for the defense of American citizens and the protection of their 
property, without being included in the British quarrel, or producing 
any serious disturbance in our amicable relations with China." 

As for the indiscretion of Consul Keenan, provided the 
reports in the London papers were correct, Dr. Parker was 
instructed to transmit to the consul a letter removing him 
from office. Keenan denied Parker's authority and was 
never removed. 

Those were the closing days of the Pierce administration 
and the government was disinclined to mark out a policy 
in China for the succeeding administration. Dr. Parker was 
left without further specific instructions as to treaty revi- 
sion, and the rumor that he was to be superseded had 
already reached him. His impatient efforts "to place in the 
crown of the present administration the laurel of establish- 



284 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

ing the United States Legation at Peking and the material 
extension" of American commerce with China" had come to 
nothing except the near approach to the gravest of entangle- 
ments in the Far East. Dr. Parker, however, found much to 
occupy his attention in the effort to establish an American 
protectorate over Formosa. 

An American Protectorate for Formosa 

There were three possible sources from which coal for 
the proposed trans-Pacific steamship line might be secured : 
Japan, the mainland of China, or Formosa. Of these three 
Formosa had, in point of time, been the first to draw the 
attention of the American authorities in China. 

In 1847 officers of both the British and the American 
navy made surveys of the coal resources of Formosa. Some 
samples of the coal were sent to the Navy Department for 
analysis, and at about the same time the Peninsula and 
Oriental Steamship Company contracted with residents of 
Formosa for 7000 tons of coal at $7 a ton. Only about 300 
tons were ever delivered. The Chinese Government became 
alarmed at the interest the foreigners were taking- in the 
island and took possession of the mines, placing obstructions 
in the way of exporting coal to Hongkong. 

In July, 1849, the U. S. brig Dolphin (Captain Ogden) 
made an expedition to Kilung, Formosa, for further explora- 
tions. Captain Ogden was strongly dissuaded by the magis- 
trate from visiting the mines, and he contented himself with 
securing some samples for analysis. The Chinese Reposi- 
tory, July, 1849, in a report of this expedition stated that 
the coal seemed to be better than that which was brought 
out from Liverpool. The editor remarked : 

"The existence of coal at this accessible point and the desirable- 
ness of depending less upon supplies brought from Europe, will soon 
induce the foreign authorities to stir in the matter." 

Commodore Perry's opinion on the desirability of an 
American protectorate over Formosa has already been 
stated. 



THE POLICY OF DR. PETER PARKER— FORMOSA 285 

There was in Canton at that time an old friend of 
Parker's, Gideon Nye, Jr., whose firm had recently failed for 
a very large sum of money. Nye was now looking about for 
ways to recoup his fortunes. Formosa had been forced upon 
Mr. Nye's attention a few years before when the American 
ship Kelpie, carrying his brother, had sailed homeward from 
Canton only to be wrecked off the rocky coast of Formosa, 
and there had been no survivors. For years the rumor per- 
sisted in Canton and Hongkong that the survivors had been 
cast ashore on Formosa, and then captured and held in slav- 
ery by some savage Formosan tribe. Indeed, one of the 
objects of the visit of the Dolphin to Formosa in 1849 had 
been to search for the survivors of the Kelpie. 

The visit of Commodore Perry to the island in 1854 had 
stimulated anew the interest of the Americans and a com- 
mercial company consisting of an American firm, Robinet 
(a Peruvian naval ofiicer who had become an American 
citizen in a somewhat informal way) and Gideon Nye, had 
been formed to exploit the trade from a point called Ape's 
Hill. Robinet and Nye made explorations and secured a 
monopoly of the camphor trade, and the privilege of an 
establishment at Takow, in return for which the traders had 
agreed to pay $100 tonnage duties on each ship and to 
protect Takow from pirates. Improvements had been made 
to the extent of $45,000, and the American flag had been 
raised at the entrance to the harbor. More recently the 
natives had become dissatisfied and the traders had been 
obliged to "threaten them with forcible measures if they 
did not act faithfully." As a result of these measures the 
American company had become "pretty much independent 
of the authorities." 

Nye and Robinet, realizing that it might be difficult to 
secure the occupation of the island by American naval 
forces, and that there were few precedents for what they 
desired, rather timidly suggested that they were perfectly 
willing, provided they were assured of the approval and 
protection of the American Government, to set up an inde- 
pendent government in Formosa.^ 



286 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

Parker was very hospitable to the idea. Perhaps he was 
the more eager because he already knew that the privilege 
of revising the treaty was not to be for him, and that his 
days in China were already numbered. Here was the oppor- 
tunity for one grand stroke. On February 12, 1857, he wrote 
to the State Department, enclosing Nye's proposition : 

"The subject of Formosa is becoming one of great interest to a 
number of our enterprising fellow-citizens, and deserves more con- 
sideration from the great commercial nations of the West than it has 
yet received; and it is much to be hoped that the Government of the 
United States may not shrink from the action which the interests of 
humanity, civilization, navigation and commerce impose upon it in 
relation to Tai-Wan, particularly the southeastern portion of it, at 
present inhabited by savages, to whose depraved cruelties we have 
every reason to believe many Europeans, and among them our own 
friends and countrymen, have fallen victims." 

Parker drew attention to his dispatch of December 12, 
for which there had not yet been time for an answer, and 
solicited the earnest consideration of the President. The 
more Parker meditated upon the subject of Formosa, the 
more his imagination kindled. Ten days after sending the 
dispatch of February 12, becoming impatient lest delay 
might be fatal to the destinies of the United States in 
Formosa, Parker hastily summoned Commodore Armstrong 
from Hongkong to Macao for a conference on ''this subject of 
great delicacy, and it may be of vast importance to the 
United States in particular and to the western nations 
generally." Parker wrote that he had reasons for feeling that 
if anything was to be done, it must be done quickly. The 
commodore came to Macao with all speed. He had a 
kindred spirit in the matter but had been rendered, perhaps, 
a little more cautious by the fact that no official approval 
for having destroyed the Barrier Forts three months before 
had as yet been received. What proposition Parker brought 
forward at the conference is not stated, but its nature may 
be inferred from the memoranda of the conference.^ 

After having read that portion of Parker's dispatch of 
December 12 which referred to Formosa, Armstrong agreed 
with Parker on the following points: (1) the measure would 



THE POLICY OF DR. PETER PARKER— FORMOSA 287 

be justified by the acknowledged principles of international 
law; (2) the claims and grievances then pending with the 
Chinese Government amply justified reprisals; (3) Formosa 
was a most desirable island and would be particularly valu- 
able to the United States; (4) but that its immediate occu- 
pation was impracticable with the present naval force, in 
view of the possibility that the Chinese Government might 
oppose it. It was admitted "that in any other country than 
China the measure would be regarded as a virtual dissolu- 
tion of avowed amicable relations." The commodore agreed, 
however, that Parker had done his duty, and if the United 
States failed to acquire the island, the fault would not be 
upon the shoulders of the commissioner. 

Parker followed his already numerous dispatches on 
Formosa with another marked 'confidential' (March 10, 
1857) in which even more impatiently he urged action. He 
had by then forgotten entirely that part of his original 
proposal which concerned the immediate restoration of the 
island to China the moment satisfaction might be obtained. 
Now he wrote : ^^ 

"In event of the establishment of a line of steamers between 
California, Japan and China, this source of supply of coal will be 
most advantageous. That the islands may not long remain a portion 
of the empire is possible; and in the event of its being severed from 
the empire politically, as it is geographically, that the United States 
should possess it is obvious, particularly as respects the great prin- 
ciple of the balance of power.'' 

And then the commissioner surrendered to his imagina- 
tion completely. 

"Great Britain has her St. Helena in the Atlantic, her Gibraltar 
and Malta in the Mediterranean, her Aden in the Red Sea, Mauritius, 
Ceylon, Penang and Singapore in the Indian Ocean, and Hongkong 
in the China Sea. If the United States is so disposed and can 
arrange for the possession of Formosa, England certainly cannot 
object." 

As to just cause for occupying the island, Parker, smart- 
ing under twenty-five years experience of being called a 
"foreign devil/' found ample grounds. 



288 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

"If there ever was a State whicli has laid herself open to just 
reprisals it is China, 'which has refused to fulfill a perfect obligation 
which she has contracted' with the United States, 'and does not 
permit them to enjoy rights which they claim' under the solemn 
stipulations of treaty; and in event of her persisting in this course, 
it seems clear that, by the acknowledged principles of international 
law, the United States have the right, if they have the inclination, to 
take Formosa by way of reprisal 'until a satisfactory reparation 
should be made for injuries they have sustained.' See Wheaton's 
^International Law,' p. 362." 

Much reading of international law since the eye-doctor 
became the diplomat had made Dr. Parker a little mad. He 
assured the Secretary of State that he had made up his mind 
to exercise his 'full powers' to revise the treaty and adjust 
all claims and to refer the matter to Washington for ap- 
proval or disavowal, but intimated that he had been un- 
able to carry Commodore Armstrong with the logic of the 
case. 

The weeks sped by, and yet the commissioner might 
expect no answer to even his first dispatch on Formosa for 
at least another couple of months. Meanwhile the British 
Admiral at Hongkong applied to Robinet (March 21) for 
information about Formosa, and during the conversation 
remarked, ''This island ought not to be allowed to exist in 
the hands of such a people, which cannot control even the 
cannibals of the eastern part, who murder our wrecked sea- 
men." Admiral Seymour then asked Robinet if he had any 
objection to permitting an English naval officer to come to 
his establishment to live a while and observe conditions. 
Robinet asked for time to consider the matter and quickly 
notified Dr. Parker.^ ^ 

The American commissioner immediately addressed Sir 
John Bowring a solemn protest on behalf of the United 
States Government against England's taking possession of 
Formosa.^" 

"In event of the Island of Formosa being severed politically from 
the Empire of China," declared the commissioner, "I trust to be 
able to substantiate a priority of claim to it on the part of the United 
States; first by contracts already entered into with the imperial 
authorities of the island by citizens of the United States; and 
secondly by their actual settlement upon it with the consent of the 



THE POLICY OF DR. PETER PARKER— FORMOSA 289 

Chinese, over which the United States flag has been hoisted for 
more than a year. . . . 

"I embrace this opportunity ... to acquaint your Excellency that 
it is my full conviction that the Government of the United States 
is disposed to adopt the same policy in China as is represented by 
your Excellency to be that of Great Britain" (i.e., not to establish 
any exclusive rights or privileges). 

Sir John Bowring replied immediately, disavowing any 
designs on Formosa and somewhat sharply making Parker 
a 'distinct' proposition for a more pressing task — the occu- 
pation by the combined American, French and English 
forces of the city of Canton. Parker was quite unable to 
accept such a 'distinct proposition' because he had no more 
authority for it than he had for the then existing American 
flag in Formosa. Probably Bowring knew this when he 
made the proposal. Parker, so intent on his project in the 
island, quite failed to catch the twinkle in Sir John's eye 
when he added to his disavowal: 

"I hear for the first time, officially, that the United States flag has 
been hoisted for more than a year in that island. ... I can assure 
your excellency T see without jealousy or annoyance the extension of 
American commerce in these regions, and will cordially support your 
excellency in the attempt to give to it the strength and security of 
legality." 

Parker, apparently wholly lacking a sense of humor, 
hastened to show the letter to Commodore Armstrong, and 
expressed great satisfaction that thus the English minister 
was on record in the matter. Meanwhile the commodore 
had been reconsidering his decisions. There were still two 
months before instructions could be received from Washing- 
ton. Armstrong knew that he was unable to occupy the 
island without express orders, but he was able to think of a 
way out of the dilemma. He proposed to Parker that he 
was willing to detach an officer from the squadron to go to 
Formosa and make another investigation for shipwrecked 
sailors "with instructions to keep his headquarters and flag 
at the premises of our countrymen, provided such an ar- 
rangement meets with your approval and sanction." The 
approval and sanction were not lacking and Parker 
replied: ^^ 



290 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

"I conceive that the settlement of our countrymen at Takow will 
afford the best facilities for making the investigation; and the fact 
of this officer being there holding his headquarters and flag may have 
an important bearing on the future." 

Disavowal by the American Government 

To the later and more impetuous proposals that he be 
given authority to complete the acquisition of Formosa, Dr. 
Parker never even received an answer from the Secretary of 
State, but to his original proposal that the three powers join 
in taking temporary possession of Korea, Chusan and For- 
mosa, he did receive the most unmistakable reply. In the 
closing days of the Pierce administration. Secretary of State 
Marcy wrote to Dr. Parker that the subject had akeady 
been submitted to the President by the French Minister and 
that the President did not beheve 

"that our relations with China warrant the last resort' you speak of, 
and if they did, the military and naval forces of the United StatP5 
could only be used by the authority of Congress. The 'last resort' 
means war, and the executive branch of this government is not the 
war-making power. . . . For the protection and security of Americans 
in China and for the protection of their property, it may be expedient 
to increase our naval forces on the China station, but the President 
will not do it for aggressive purposes." 

In less than a week the Buchanan administration came 
into office, William B. Reed was appointed Minister to 
China, and Dr. Parker immediately dropped all preparations 
for his expedition to Formosa. The instructions to Minister 
Reed are most explicit, in reply to all of Dr. Parker's pro- 
posals and to the ambitions of any Americans in China to 
acquire territory at the expense of the Empire.^* 

"This country, you will constantly bear in mind, is not at vpar with 
the Government of China, nor does it seek to enter into that empire 
for any other purpose than those of lawful commerce, and for the 
protection of the lives and property of its citizens. The whole nature 
and policy of our government must necessarily confine our action 
within these limits, and deprive us of all motives either for territorial 
aggrandizement or the acquisition of political power in that distant 
region. . . . You will not fail to let it be known to the Chinese 
authorities that we are no party to the existing hostilities, and have 
no intention to interfere in their political concerns, or to gain a foot- 



THE POLICY OF DR. PETER PARKER— FORMOSA 291 

hold in their country. We go there to engage in trade, but under 
suitable guarantees for its protection. The extension of our com- 
mercial intercourse must be the work of individual enterprise, and 
to this element of our national character we may safely leave it." 

One may close this chapter of American history with a 
smile, and yet one is to remember it as an illustration of the 
fact that, contrary to popular impression, no bacillus has 
ever been introduced into the blood of Americans which 
renders them immune to imperialistic ambitions when 
others have the malady and when commercial conditions 
favorable for the infection are present. 

However, with the issuance of the instructions to Min- 
ister Reed in 1857, the policy which had been proposed by 
Commodore Perry came definitely to an end, never to appear 
again until the day more than forty years later when Presi- 
dent McKinley cabled to the American Commissioners at 
Paris to demand the cession of the Philippines to the 
United States. 

Dr. Parker's policy had not been complicated or subtle, 
and requires no analysis. He belonged to the Perry school 
of Asiatic policy. 

BIBLIOGEAPHICAL NOTES 

1. Stevens and Marwick : "Life and Letters of Peter Parker." 

2. Parker Corres. (published with the McLane Corres. in 2 vols.), 

S. Ex. Doc. 22 :35-2, pp. 610 ff. 

3. Ihid., p. 619. 

4. Cordier: "L'Expedition de Chine," p. 10; Morse, Vol. 1, pp. 

416-7. 

5. Although the incident is fully reported in the Parker Corres., 

the simplest account, fairly complete, is in Morse, Vol. 1, pp. 
> 432-3. 

6. Parker Corres., p. 1083. 

7. S. Ex. Doc. 30 :36-l, p. 4. 

8. Parker Corres., pp. 1184, 1211-5. 

9. Ihid., p. 1211-18. 

10. Ihid., p. 1208. 

11. Ihid., p. 1246. 

12. Ihid., pp. 1247-9. 

13. Ihid., p. 1250. 

14. S. Ex. Doc. 30 :36-l, p. 8. 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE BUCHANAN ADMINISTKATION AND THE FAE EAST 

Increase of American Prestige under Pierce 

During the Pierce administration American prestige in 
Asia had risen rapidly to a point of determining influence. 
Perhaps never again in the nineteenth century did the 
United States possess such actual and potential influence 
as in 1855 and 1856. Not only had the Americans opened 
Japan, an accomplishment which other nations had come to 
regard as impossible without hostilities, but the American 
representatives in China had the most important achieve- 
ments to their credit. The British and the French had been 
led to relinquish their exclusive pretensions at Shanghai, the 
Inspectorate of Maritime Customs under foreign direction 
had been set up, and the possibility of intervention in favor 
of the Taiping rebels had been averted. All this was fully 
in accord with the American policy to strengthen and sup- 
port the Imperial Government of China, 

Closer scrutiny, however, reveals that for these accom- 
plishments the Pierce administration could claim little or no 
credit. The Japan expedition had been planned, organized 
and set out under Fillmore. The only changes in the orig- 
inal plans had been the reduction in the size of the fleet to 
be placed under the command of Perry. Neither Pierce nor 
Marcy made any positive or constructive contribution to 
the task of opening the ports of Japan. Marshall, who was 
easily the outstanding figure among the American com- 
missioners, had been an appointee of Fillmore and had been 
recalled by Pierce. McLane, while in general accepting and 
carrying out the policy of Marshall, had made one import- 
ant personal contribution — the idea of the Inspectorate of 

292 



BUCHANAN ADMINISTRATION AND THE FAR EAST 293 

Maritime Customs— but for this the Pierce administration 
could claim no credit. The step was taken by McLane unin- 
structed from Washington. Indeed, the American position 
in Asia had been magnified not at all as a result of any 
instructions issued from the Department of State. In part 
it had arisen out of the peculiarities of the European diplo- 
matic and military situation and the Crimean War. As a 
powerful and successful neutral in Asia the United States 
not only assumed but was assigned a position of great 
influence. 

With the return of peace to Europe Great Britain set 
about not merely to regain the place of preeminence which 
had been lost in Far Eastern affairs, but also to make an- 
other advance. These efforts coincided with the entrance 
of the Buchanan administration into the American Govern- 
ment. In the next four years we shall witness the steady 
retirement of American influence in Asia. The causes were 
not simple. Domestic problems in the United States were 
pressing closely upon the American people and eclipsing the 
former interest in the Orient. Great Britain was striving to 
regain her former relative place in China. And of at least 
equal importance was the fact that the American people 
and the administration did not prize or appreciate the vic- 
tories which had been won in the East. Little effort was 
made to sustain what had already been accomplished, and 
the ignorance, timidity, and diplomatic ineptitude of Bu- 
chanan and Cass turned what little effort was made to the 
disadvantage of the United States. To this sweeping state- 
ment one exception must be made. The Townsend Harris 
commercial treaty with Japan in 1858 became easily the 
most brilliant diplomatic achievement of the United States 
in Asia for the entire century, a feat indeed which has never 
since been equalled, but one has to remember that Harris 
had been instructed and sent to Japan under the preceding 
administration, and no credit whatever for his success 
belongs to either Buchanan or to Cass, nor in fact to any one 
save Harris alone. 

The study of the Buchanan-Cass policy in Asia becomes 



294 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

a survey of the decay of American influence. The two ques- 
tions of pohcy of the utmost importance were bequeathed to 
the administration by Pierce and Marcy : the decision as to 
whether the United States should enter an aUiance with 
Great Britain and France for the settlement of the Far 
Eastern question ; and the revision of the treaty. Without 
attempting to point a moral or to be wiser than those whose 
duty it was to solve these puzzles, let us subject these prop- 
ositions to close analysis. 

Ebbing Distrust of Great Britain 

The history of the ebbing distrust of Great Britain and 
the growing desire for the- adoption of a cooperative policy 
in China presents some interesting details. A few incidents 
selected from the period immediately after the ratification 
of the Treaty of Wanghia will illustrate the strength of the 
existing American sentiment against England. 

Shortly after the ratifications of the Treaty of Wanghia 
were exchanged (December 31, 1845) by Commodore James 
Biddle and Kiying, the latter sent a friend to confer with 
the American representative about the difficulties which 
then existed between Kiying and Sir John Francis Davis. 
The English plenipotentiary had demanded of the Chinese 
viceroy a pledge that when the English should restore the 
island of Chusan and Kuling-fu, then held as security for 
the payment of the indemnity, the Chinese should give 
pledge that these islands should never be ceded to any other 
foreign nation. Biddle advised Kiying to resist such a 
demand, and seized the opportunity to point out to Kiying 
how much better off China would be if only she would admit 
resident ministers to Peking. The commodore also pressed 
upon the high commissioner the wisdom of having China 
take up the study of the modern arts of war, in order that in 
the future she might be able to defend herself in the con- 
flicts which Biddle plainly foresaw. 

A month later Biddle wrote to Buchanan : "The refusal 
(of the English) to withdraw these troops from Chusan is a 



BUCHANAN ADMINISTRATION AND THE FAR EAST 295 

clear violation of the Treaty of Nanking" (February 21, 
1846). 1 

At this interview with Commodore Biddle the other chief 
point of irritation between the English and the Chinese was 
discussed — the question of the right, under the British 
treaty, of entrance into Canton, The British demanded that 
the gates of the city be opened to foreigners; the Chinese 
absolutely refused to yield to the demand. They based their 
refusal on both the hostile temper of the Canton gentry and 
populace and on the Chinese text of the treaty, which it had 
been agreed was to be equally authoritative with the Eng- 
lish text. They explained that in the Chinese text the word 
used with reference to the opening of the city was not the 
Chinese word for 'walled city' but the word which should be 
translated 'port' or 'mart.' The Americans acquiesced in 
this explanation, and although the American consul at 
Canton made it the subject of a formal request, he did not 
press the matter.* Commodore Biddle advised Kiying's 
emissary that he considered that they were perfectly right 
in refusing to yield to Great Britain f in the matter.^ 

Four months after his arrival in China Commissioner 
Everett reported a conversation between Dr. Parker, secre- 
tary of the Legation, and a 'high mandarin.' ^ The latter, 
referring to the currently reported proposal of the English 
to open up relations with China through Assam, had re- 
marked that the British seemed determined to get posses- 

* The Chinese Repository, which was edited by Rev. B. C. Bridgman and S. 
Wells Williams, two of the best Chinese scholars among the foreigners, stated 
in a review of this question of entry into Canton (May, 1849, p. 276-9) : "It is 
so local (this feeling about foreigners entering Canton) that the Chinese com- 
missioners at Nanking, having never been at Canton, seem not to have given 
it a thought, — at least they did not agree in plain terms that the foreigners 
should enter its gates, or those of any other of the five ports, and nothing in 
the treaty, nor in those of the Bogue, Wanghai, or.Whampoa, can be construed 
as promising it even by implication. The idea which a native would derive 
from reading these four treaties is that foreigners have permission to reside at 
the five ports, in the places where trade is carried on, the term kiang kan, or 
river's mouth, referring t© the location on shore where traders collect from 
their ships to barter and exchange their goods. Such places are not neces- 
sarily walled in, nor are they called ching, i.e., citadels or walled cities, and 
resort to the former has no reference in, — certainly does not include ingress into 
. — the latter. The phrase is varied in the Treaty of Whampoa to kan shi-fan 
U fang, i.e., seaport, market places, so as to restrict the residence of French 
citizens where trade is carried on." 

t The question of entry into Canton never became an issue between the 
Americans and the Chinese, notwithstanding the fact that it actually precipi- 
tated hostilities between the Chinese and the English. For a review of the 
long negotiations over the subject see Morse.^ 



296 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

sion of China — "not perhaps immediately but at some future 
time." Everett himself was so much impressed with the 
truth of this view that a month later he wrote to 
Buchanan: ^ 

"The conviction that the British Government is determined to 
get possession of their country, which, as I mentioned in a late dis- 
patch, was expressed to a member of this legation by one of the 
leading mandarins at Canton some weeks ago, has been freely avowed, 
on former occasions, to Commodore Biddle. ... It is probably uni- 
versal among the educated and well informed men of the empire." 

Everett then drew on his previous experience as a diplo- 
mat in the courts of continental Europe, and proposed that 
the United States take the lead in the formation of a com- 
bination of Russia, France and the United States fo get 
England to agree to abstain from aggressions in China. No 
comment on this plan was forthcoming from Washington, 
and Everett died a few months later (June 28, 1847). 

Dr. Peter Parker, who became Charge upon the death 
of Everett was so convinced of the hostile intentions of 
England in the controversy over the opening of the gates of 
the city of Canton that (September 25, 1847) he addressed 
a confidential dispatch to Buchanan, warning him of the 
'impending crisis.' He stated that it was common remark 
among the American merchants that in a little while they 
would be paying duties through an English customs house 
at Canton. Parker thought it likely that within another 
twelve or fifteen months the British would place a minister 
in Peking, and demand redress for many grievances. He 
strongly urged upon the American Government the neces- 
sity of taking action at once to place an American minister 
in Peking 'before the dismemberment of the empire is com- 
menced.' 

The new commissioner, John W. Davis, who arrived in 
August 1848, did not share at all the suspicions of his pre- 
decessors as to the intentions of England and informed the 
State Department that the English did not seem disposed 
to make any trouble. The following March he reported that 
gome of the Americans in Canton have been urging that the 



BUCHANAN ADMINISTRATION AND THE FAR EAST 297 

United States join with Great Britain the following month 
in forcing the gates of the city.*^ A year later he sent a dis- 
patch which marked the rise, by the side of the old suspi- 
cions, of a new sentiment of cooperation between the English 
and the Americans. He wrote: "^ 

"The English Government at Hongkong has dispatched a war 
steamer to the mouth of the Pei-ho with a communication from the 
court at London to that of this country, evidently with an intention, 
if possible, to open up a direct intercourse with His Imperial Majesty. 
Had there been a suitable American vessel of war on this station, I 
should have taken the responsibility of suggesting to the Commander 
a similar project on our part, satisfied (as I stated in a former dis- 
patch) that until our intercourse is directly with the Court of this 
country, we must always labor under great embarrassments in all 
diplomatic relations and correspondence." 

A few weeks later Davis returned to the United States, 
and Dr. Parker again became Charge. The following year 
Dr. Parker sent a confidential dispatch to Daniel Webster, 
who had become for the second time Secretary of State, in 
which he reviewed at length the political situation both as 
regards England and China, and stated : ^ ''To prevent the 
necessity of any one of these powers adopting coercive 
measures, it is proposed that joint pacific steps be taken by 
all." Parker then outlined a plan for the powers to proceed 
simultaneously to Peking, and jointly to insist upon placing 
representatives at the capital with access to the Imperial 
Court — substantially the plan which was actually adopted 
in 1858, He reported that Dr. John Bowring, then British 
consul at Canton, as well as the French and Spanish repre- 
sentatives, were interested in the plan. Bowring is reported 
by Parker to have said that if England acted it would prob- 
ably be a hostile action, but if the Western powers acted 
conjointly the action might be peaceful. The drift of pub- 
lic sentiment in China may thus be clearly marked. 
Whereas, in 1847, the American commissioner proposed a 
plan to block England in any aggressions she might be con- 
sidering, the new plan proposed to include England in a 
common program for the purpose of moderating her action. 
The new policy was very sound. 



298 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

Proposals for an Alliance with Great Britain 
AND France 

The sticking-point for the Americans in the matter of 
cooperation with the British or any other power in Asia, 
then and always, was whether the combined power thus 
obtained from cooperation would be turned at some future 
time to the disadvantage of legitimate American interests. 
In 1847 Great Britain had made no declaration of policy 
either directly or obliquely which was to the Americans in 
any way reassuring. Within the next five years the situa- 
tion had materially changed. The British had at Shanghai 
conceded every point for which the Americans had con- 
tended, and the British Government through its representa- 
tives in Washington had made direct overtures, accompanied 
by a declaration of policy, for American cooperation. Great 
Britain assured the United States that while it sought the 
complete opening of China to trade, it would ask for no 
exclusive advantages for itself. The reason for these over- 
tures is obvious and was well expressed by a great British 
statesman. In the great debate in the House of Commons 
February, 1857, on the "Arrow affair" and upon the char- 
acter of British policy in China, as a result of which Parlia- 
ment was dissolved and Palmerston went to the country for 
an approval of his policies, Disraeli remarked : ^ 

"Fifty years ago Lord Hastings offered to conquer China with 
20,000 men. So great a captain as the Marquess of Hastings might 
have succeeded ; but since the time when our Clives and Hastings 
founded our Indian Empire the position of affairs in the East has 
greatly changed. Great Powers have been brought into contact with 
us in the East. We have the Russian Empire and the American 
Republic there, and a system of political compromise has developed 
itself like the balance of power in Europe; and, if you are not cautious 
and careful in your conduct now in dealing with China, you will 
find that you are likely not to extend commerce, but to excite the 
jealousy of powerful states, and to involve yourselves in hostilities 
with nations not inferior to yourselves." 

That Disraeli had not misread the trend of events, and 
that he had not been ill advised in thus placing in associa- 



BUCHANAN ADMINISTRATION AND THE FAR EAST 299 

tion the two names of Russia and America in Far Eastern 
policy is shown by the fact that in the revision of the 
treaties of 1858 the American and the Russian ministers 
sustained to each other relations which were even more 
intimate than those subsisting between Lord Elgin and 
Baron Gros, although France and England were actually 
allied in China. As early as 1851 the American officials in 
China had been directed by the State Department to extend 
such assistance as was possible to Russian subjects in China 
and the Sandwich Islands whenever it might be necessary.^ ^ 
Russia was studiously cultivating American friendship. 

Great Britain could not profitably entertain the hostility 
of too many Powers, and it was plain that she was in the 
way to acquire the active opposition of the United States to 
whatever she might attempt in China, at the time of the 
revision of the treaties when she needed cooperation. On 
the other hand it was equally evident to the Government of 
the United States that cooperation rather than irritating 
conflicts with Great Britain were desirable in the face of the 
stolid opposition of China to all friendly advance from the 
American representatives. 

Early in 1854, Commissioner McLane noted a disposition 
on the part of Sir John Bowring to seek the heartiest coop- 
eration with the United States in the revision of the treaties. 
Bowring did not possess the confidence of the American 
community in China, and McLane was cautioned by Marcy, 
May 8, 1854, not to rely too much upon the judgment of his 
British colleague.^ ^ McLane was, however, instructed in 
the same letter to cooperate, which he did in the joint 
expedition to the Pei-ho in November, 1854. 

The visit of Dr. Peter Parker, who was a most enthusi- 
astic advocate of cooperation, to London and Paris in the 
latter part of 1855, has already been referred to. The 
failure of this effort was due to several reasons : the British 
were not then ready for an active movement in China; Dr. 
Parker did not win the confidence of Lord Clarendon; and 
the Pierce administration, now drawing to a close and 
estranged from Great Britain by the objectionable activities 



300 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

of the British consuls and Sir John Crampton * in securing 
enlistments for the Crimean War, was hardly in a mood to 
cooperate with England in the Far East. 

Encouraged by the visit of Dr. Parker to London the 
preceding year, by the cordial relations between Dr. Parker 
and Sir John Bowring after Dr. Parker's return to China, 
and then by the action of Commodore Armstrong at the 
Barrier Forts, Lord Clarendon felt the time opportune, at 
the beginning of the Buchanan administration, to sound out 
the American Government on the subject of an actual alli- 
ance of the three treaty powers — Great Britain, France and 
the United States — for a revision of the treaties. Indeed, 
the matter seems to have been taken up in the closing days 
of the preceding administration by the French Minister, for 
before Dr. Parker's proposal for the occupation of territory 
was received, President Pierce was already familiar with the 
plan, and had verbally expressed his disapproval. 

On the 14th of March, 1857, Lord Napier, the British 
Minister at Washington, took up with Secretary of State 
Cass the request that the United States would grant that 
"concurrent and active cooperation which the Government 
of France has already accorded, and that they will authorize 
their naval and political authorities in China to act heartily 
in concert with the agents of the two allied powers." ^- At 
the same time the British Minister explained fully to the 
United States the intentions of Great Britain in China, 
transmitting a memorandum in which were given the in- 
structions to Sir John Bowring for the revision of the trea- 
ties, and the instructions which had been issued to the Brit- 
ish naval forces. The plan contemplated the complete 
destruction of the Barrier Forts, and, if that were not suffi- 
cient, then the blockade of the Yangtze River as far as the 
Grand Canal, and a further blockade of the mouth of the 
Pei-ho. The instructions for the revision of the treaty 
included : residence at Peking for diplomatic representatives 
of Foreign Powers; extension of commercial intercourse with 

*The preceding summer the British minister in Washington had been given 
his passports by Marcy for having insisted on the right to stir up sympathy in 
the United States for England during the Crimean War. 



BUCHANAN ADMINISTRATION AND THE FAR EAST 301 

the coast and into the interior; abolition of transit taxes in 
the interior; no exclusive privileges for Great Britain. The 
legalization of the opium trade was not mentioned. 

The negotiations at Washington continued for a month. 
March 30 Lord Napier forwarded to Cass a memorandum to 
be placed in the hands of the President. In this document 
the British plan for an alUance was argued under the follow- 
ing points : 

1. China will not be able to offer greater resistance tban sbe did 
in the war of 1842, for since then she has been worn down by revo- 
lution and the financial resources of the empire are exhausted. On. 
the other hand to the strength of England is now added that of 
France. 

2. "It is best to 'abridge' the struggle as much as possible, and 
not to weaken more than necessary the Imperial Government." 

3. "The Allied Powers have declared their objects wsich are 
humane, honorable, and pregnant with future benefits. They aim at 
no territorial extension; their moderate and solitary demands are 
comprised in the establishment of diplomatic relations, the enfran- 
chisement of the trade, and the regulation of duties, the suppression 
of piracy, and the toleration of the Clvistian religion." 

As the situation then stood four Powers had recognized the inter- 
course with China ; Great Britain and France were about to make 
war; Russia and the United States were neutral. The Russian 
Minister in Washington had expressed the opinion that Russia would 
not oppose the Allied Powers in China, but it was the hope of Lord 
Napier that the United States would not be content with a position 
similar to that of Russia. The relations of the United States with 
China, he pointed out, were quite difl^erent from the relations between 
Russia and China. 

"No country has availed itself so extensively as the United States 
of the increased access first opened up by England in the year 1842, 
and no country has so much to gain by a perfect emancipation of the 
trade. The amount of business transacted by the United States with 
China may still be inferior to that in which Great Britain is engaged, 
but it increases with greater rapidity, and is now unquestionably 
destined to exceed that of all other nations hereafter." The United 
States, therefore, would find it a calamity if the ports of China were 
blockaded for long. 

While the United States did not recognize the existence of a 
sufficient cause for war with China, aj-gued Lord Napier, "there is, 
apparently, nothing in their political constitution, nor in the relations 
of domestic parties, or in the general temper of the nation, which 
should prevent them contributing to the success of the common cause, 
and the consolidation of the common good by that degree of pacific 
and amicable concurrence which would be embodied in the following 
measures : 



302 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

(a) Declaration of approval of the objects of the Allied Nations; 

(&) Appointment of a distinguished person as Plenipotentiary 
who should proceed to his destination in a vessel of war befitting 
the dignity of his country and his mission; the envoy to be empowered 
to attend the movements of the ministers of Great Britain and 
France, and to visit London and France to secure the most recent 
information about China before proceeding to his post; 

(c) Increase of the American squadron in the China Seas. 

"The presence of an able Plenipotentiary," continued Lord Napier, 
"and commander with a competent force, acting even in pacific con- 
currence with the agents of Great Britain and France would manifest 
to the Chinese that our desires are identical, though our measures may 
be different, and that the only course left open to them is a frank and 
unhesitating accession to our proposals. 

"Finally, it may be remarked that if the pending differences be 
adjusted by the combined action of the United States with England 
and France, the beneficial effects of such an alliance will be felt 
beyond the present time, and the scene on which it is first exerted. 
The Chinese Government will know that it had contracted weighty 
engagements of future good conduct towards a confederacy prepared 
to enforce their rights by a harmonious cooperation, and the three 
Powers, fortified by the prestige of unanimity and success may then 
point their efforts^to the improvement of their relations with Japan, 
which has been ^ready partly brought within the pale of European 
commerce by tHe ifnaided enterprise of the United States." 

To this careiiill;p worded proposal for an alliance of the 
three powers for the settlement of the Far Eastern question, 
Cass replied, April 10, 1857: 

"True wisdom . . , dictates the observance of moderation and 
discretion in our attempts to open China to the trade and intercourse 
of the world. To be safe and successful the effort must be the work 
of time, and of those changes which time gradually brings with it."' 

Cass pointed out that, under the Constitution, Congress; 
is the war-declaring power in the United States and that a 
military expedition into Chinese territory could not be; 
undertaken without the consent of the national legislature. 
And, moreover, the relations of the United States with 
China did not justify war. On the other hand, the United 
States would heed the request for the appointment of a new 
plenipotentiary, but it was clearly stated that the United 
States would not become a party to any treaty which might 
be negotiated jointly by England and France with China, 
and that the conventional arrangements of the United States 



BUCHANAN ADMINISTRATION AND THE FAR EAST 303 

with China would be confined solely to the r vo latter 
powers. ■■) 

In May, 1857, William B. Reed was appointed envoy 
extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to China and 
charged with the duty of revising the treaty.^^ Accc^mpany- 
ing his instructions was the Lord Napier correspondence to 
which his attention was especially directed : 

"There seems to be an entire unanimity of sentiment and ' \ction," 
wrote Cass, "between Great Britain and France, extending ven to 
armed cooperation, and you will find from the papers annex ,d that 
the United States has been invited to join the alliance and to artici- 
pate in its hostile movements. The reasons of the Presirtont for 
declining this participation are sufficiently stated in the com nunica' 
tion to the British minister already referred to, together with hia 
opinions as to the extent to which the United States may fairly co- 
operate with the allied powers in China." 

Thus ended, so far as the United States was concerned, 
the first efforts on the part of another powe^ to secure an 
alliance for the settlement of the Far EaLUvn question. 
Thus ended also for more than forty years . ^ consideration 
of the possibilities of actual hostilities between the United 
States and China. 

The Buchanan administration, in 1857, was faced with 
difficult choices in the Far East as well as at home. The 
President could have laid before Congress the facts that 
China had failed to observe the stipulations of the Treaty 
of Wanghia (1844). He could have pointed out that the 
Government of China had failed to protect the lives 
and property of American citizens in China and that 
failing in that, China had evaded payment of claims 
for reparation. Diplomatic correspondence had been im- 
peded, interviews with the Imperial Commissioner at Can- 
ton, and with the Governor General at Foochow had 
been repelled, and a letter of President Pierce to the 
Emperor of China had been treated with indignity, hav- 
ing been returned to the commissioner without answer, 
and with broken seals. On the basis of these facts 
President Buchanan might have asked Congress to authorize 
a military and naval expedition to China to demand repara- 



304 1 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

tions. Had Congress yielded to this request he might have 
sought its further approval for the joint expedition with 
Great Bfitain and France. Two American commissioners in 
China htid recommended such a course. Lord Napier urged 
it. The American residents in China, for the most part, 
would h ive approved. But to neither of these propositions 
was it ^even remotely possible that Congress would have 
given its assent. Public opinion would have seen in them 
only a) trick by which England was seeking the aid of the 
Uniteit States in her efforts to secure the legalization of the 
opium jtrade. 

On the other hand, the Government of the United 
States could have ignored the causes for war, which upon 
examination proved to be very slight, and could have con- 
tinued a policy of conciliation, waiting for time to do its 
work in softening the prejudices of the Chinese and leading 
them to see the advantages to them of the fullest possible 
harmony and cooperation with the United States. Such a 
policy, within a few years, would doubtless have met with 
some success. However, one large factor in such a success 
would have been the chastisement which Great Britain had 
already determined to administer to China. 

There had been even a third honest course open to the 
United States. It could have said to Great Britain and 
France that while in the approaching crisis the United 
States would remain neutral, it would instruct its diplomatic 
officers in China to abstain from pressing any claims on 
China for the revision of the treaty, and would practically 
withdraw from the open ports while the allied powers had a 
free hand. This course would have been exceedingly unsat- 
isfactory to Great Britain whose good will the United States 
was then seeking to cultivate. England already felt that in 
the war of 1839-42 she had really been fighting the battle of 
American as well as British merchants, and that the time 
had come for the United States to share some of the burdens 
incident to the advantages its citizens in China enjoyed. In 
the United States also there would have been an objection to 
such a policy, for still in the opinion of many Great Britain 



BUCHANAN ADMINISTRATION AND THE FAR EAST 305 

could not be trusted in China and required a great deal of 
watching. 

The policy actually adopted represented a compromise 
at every point and assigned to the United States an igno- 
minious role. President Buchanan rejected the proposal of 
war with China, but he yielded to Lord Clarendon and Lord 
Napier in that he agreed to dispatch to China a plenipoten- 
tiary to be present during the hostilities, with instructions 
to press the American claims for reparations and a revision 
of the treaty at any opportune time. 

There is reason to believe that this decision was satis- 
factory to Great Britain. It involved the assent of the 
United States to the plan of chastisement and thus fore- 
stalled any opposition, such as Humphrey Marshall had 
made in 1853, to the English program of operations. While 
it placed upon Great Britain a burden of expense which it 
would have been glad to share, yet it removed from the 
arena a power with which England would otherwise have 
had to share the certain prestige of victory. In 1858 Great 
Britain was preparing not merely to open up China to the 
trade of the world, but also to 'claim her place of priority 
in the East,' ^'^ and there were few regrets that the United 
States was unprepared to assert a similar claim. Meanwhile 
an American envoy extraordinary and minister plenipoten- 
tiary was to be dispatched to the other side of the world to 
stand under the tree, with his basket, waiting for his asso- 
ciates above to shake down the fruit, and he was even 
instructed to offer mediation in case those in the tree be- 
came involved with the owners of the orchard. Surely a 
representative of the United States never played a more 
inglorious role in international affairs. 

Instructions to William B. Reed 

As long as such a policy was to be pursued it would have 
been wise to select an experienced diplomat, but instead 
President Buchanan appointed his friend William B. Reed 
of Pennsylvania. Reed's diplomatic experience had been 



306 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 



1 



confined to a brief period when at the age of twenty he 
served as private secretary to Joel R. Poinsett, U. S. minis- 
ter in Mexico (1825-7). He was a lawyer by profession and 
and had been active in state politics, having been a member 
of the legislature and attorney general. For the six years | 
previous to his departure for China he had been professor 
of American history in the University of Pennsylvania.^^ 
Mr. Reed's instructions from Lewis Cass were: ^^ 

1. Communicate freely with the British and French ministers 
and make known to the Chinese that the President believes that the 
objects of the Allied Powers are "just and expedient." Confine your- 
self to firm representations to the Chinese, bearing in mind that the 
Government of the United States is not at war with China, and 
leaving to the government to determine what shall be the next step in 
case your representations are fruitless. 

2. Have the same friendly relations with the envoy of Russia as 
with those of France and England. Enlist his support for your 
representations to the Chinese Government. "There is nothing in the 
policy of the United States with respect to China which is not quite 
consistent with the pacific relations which are understood to exist , 
between that empire and Russia." ■ 

3. Make clear to the Chinese authorities that the United States T 
seeks only the enlargement of opportunities for trade, and that it 
desires neither territory nor to interfere in China's domestic affairs. 

4. The United States does not seek the legalization of the opium 
trade, and will not uphold its citizens in any efforts they make to 
introduce the drug into the country. 

5. Secure the establishment of some basis of exchange which 
will provide for the recognition of the legal currency of the United 
States at its true value when offered in payment for goods. 

6. Secure the enforcement of the existing treaty in the matter of 
the satisfaction of claims, the right of protection for the life and , 
property of American citizens, and obtain modifications which will I 
permit to Americans the right of residence in the open ports without ' 
interference. 

7. It was also intimated that Mr. Reed might assume the role 
of mediator. "It is possible even that it [Reed's neutral position] 
may be employed with advantage as a means of communication be- 
tween the belligerent parties, and tend in this way to the termination 
of the war." 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

1. China Desp. Vol. 3 (Dept. of State). 

2. Ihid., Jan. 8, 1846. 

3. Morse, Vol. 1, pp. 37Y-80. 

4. China. Desp. Vol. 3, Feb. 28, 1847. 

5. Ibid., Apr. 10, 1847. 



BUCHANAN ADMINISTRATION AND THE FAR EAST 307 

6. China Desp. Vol. 5, Mar. 26, 1849. 

Y. China. Desp. April 22, 1850. 

8. China Desp. Vol. 6, Apr. 22, 1851. 

9. Hansard, Series 3, 'Yol. CXLIV, Feb. 3, 1857-Mar. 21, 1851, p. 

1836. 

10. China Instructions, Vol. 1, June 21, 1851. 

11. lUd., May 8, 1854. _ 

12. Notes from the British Legation, Vol. 34, Napier to Cass, Mar. 

14, 30, 1857 (Dept of State). 

13. S. Ex. Doc. 30:36-1. 

14. Walrond's Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin, 

p. 253; see also pp. 207 and 209 for similar clues to the policy 
adopted by Lord Elgin in China. 

15. Twentieth Century Bibliographical Dictionary of Notable 

Americans. 

16. Eeed Corres., S. Ex. Doe. 30:36-1, p. 68. 



PART IV 
THE COOPERATIVE POLICY 



CHAPTER XVII 

WILLIAM B. EEED AND THE TEEATY OF TIENTSIN 

William B. Reed, the first American Minister Plenipo- 
tentiary to China, arrived at Hongkong in November, 1857, 
and six months later reached the mouth of the Pei-ho in 
company with Count Putiatin, Baron Gros and Lord 
Elgin, the Russian, French and British envoys respectively. 
Elgin and Gros had been instructed to demand full repara- 
tions for insults and injuries including particularly the 
hauling down of the British flag on the lorcha Arrow, a 
vessel which had been engaged in opium smuggling, and the 
murder of Abbe Chapedelaine, a French Roman Catholic 
missionary in Kwangsi, and also to secure a full revision of 
the treaties. They had been accompanied to China by 
formidable fleets of war vessels and transports and were 
fully prepared for hostilities. The American envoy was in- 
structed to secure "modifications" of the Gushing treaty, 
and Putiatin was seeking an entirely new convention 
which would admit Russia to the sea-borne trade of China 
on the same terms as those enjoyed by the other treaty 
powers.^ 

The events from the arrival of Reed to the beginning of 
negotiations at the Pei-ho must be summarized briefly. 
Commissioner Yeh at Canton refused to see Reed and 
asserted that a revision of the treaty was unnecessary. 
Meeting with similar treatment. Lord Elgin and Baron Gros 
turned matters over to the allied naval authorities and the 
bombardment of Canton began December 28. A week later 
the city was invaded and occupied. Yeh was made prisoner 
and subsequently transported to Calcutta where he died. 
The British and French troops remained in occupation of 
Canton while the allied envoys, preceded by Reed and 

311 



312 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

Putiatin, advanced to Shanghai. Notwithstanding some 
misunderstandings with Lord Elgin who from the outset 
assumed complete leadership of the allied expedition, Reed 
worked in cooperation with the allied envoys. He addressed 
a separate yet practically simultaneous note with the others 
to Peking demanding a revision of the treaties and approv- 
ing the demands of the British and French. Notwithstand- 
ing this effort to cooperate, Mr. Reed was subjected to the 
most pusillanimous abuse by the Times correspondent who 
accompanied Lord Elgin,- and was made to feel that the 
only cooperation really desired was one in which Lord Elgin 
would dictate the movements and policy of the combined 
missions.^ The American envoy had been assigned to an 
impossible role. At Shanghai he received additional instruc- 
tions from Secretary of State Cass, again cautioning him to 
limit his cooperation to purely peaceful measures. The 
coldness of Lord Elgin and the cordiality of Count Putiatin 
tended more and more to separate the four envoys into 
pairs, and the increasing intimacy of Reed with the Russians 
became an additional annoyance to the British. At the 
Pei-ho Reed determined to adopt an independent course of 
action. It may be gravely questioned whether it was not 
a fundamental error of policy for the Americans to be pres- 
ent at what was evidently intended to be a hostile demon- 
stration, but being there, no other than an independent 
course of action was consistent with Reed's instructions, or 
with his self-respect. 

Reed and Putiatin began negotiations with Tan, an 
Imperial Commissioner with limited powers, early in May. 
Elgin and Gros refused to meet Tan on the ground that his 
powers were too limited. Tan reported that the Emperor 
would concede the opening of seven new ports, five on the 
coast and two in Formosa, the absolute toleration of Chris- 
tianity, a modification of the tonnage dues to the advantage 
of American bottoms, and an inclusive most-favored-nation 
clause. The opening of the rivers to trade and the right of 
either occasional or permanent diplomatic residence at Pe- 
king were absolutely refused.^ 



WILLIAM B. REED AND THE TREATY OF TIENTSIN 313 

Against the advice of Lord Elgin and Baron Gros, Mr. 
Reed decided to continue the conferences with the Chinese 
officials, although it was definitely known that the refusal 
of the Emperor to consent to diplomatic residence at or 
visits to the capital, and the refusal to open up the rivers, 
left the allied envoys no alternative but to proceed up the 
river, using whatever force might be required. On the 19th 
of May S. Wells Williams and W. A. P. Martin were in the 
midst of a conference with some of the subordinate officers 
of the Imperial Commission where articles of the treaty 
were being drafted when a note from Mr. Reed warned 
them that the allied powers were to bombard the forts the 
following day. The American minister instructed them to 
discontinue the conference. 

Promptly at ten o'clock, May 20, the allies attacked the 
Taku forts which offered only a feeble resistance. Having 
taken possession of the forts within two hours, the allied 
forces moved on up the river. 

Mr. Reed's intention to withdraw from the scene of brief 
conflict was not carried out. Indeed, a large number of 
officers from the squadron which was compelled to lay at 
anchorage well off shore came inside the river to the 
Antelope, a small steamer which had been chartered at 
Shanghai and attached to the squadron for service in shal- 
low water, to view the attack. Hardly was the struggle over 
when Dr. Williams received a note from one of the attaches 
of the Chinese Commission expressing the hope that the 
Americans would not withdraw. And the next day Count 
Putiatin and Mr. Reed received a formal request urging 
them to remain and follow the allied envoys up to Tientsin. 
Lord Elgin also urged that the neutral envoys continue 
their cooperation as far as possible. On the 29th of May 
Lord Elgin and Baron Gros proceeded up the river in a 
British vessel flying both the British and the French flags, 
and shortly after Count Putiatin and Mr. Reed followed 
in the Russian steamer Amerika, which flew both the Rus- 
sian and the American ensigns. At Tientsin the allied pleni- 
potentiaries took up residence in a large temple, while the 



314 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

neutral envoys found less commodious but more comfortable 
quarters together in a private residence. 

This advance of the allied and neutral plenipotentiaries 
to a point half way between the mouth of the Pei-ho and 
Peking had an immediate effect on the Imperial Court. 
Two commissioners, Kweiliang, a cabinet minister, and 
Hwashana, president of the Board of Civil Office, with 
powers which were practically unlimited, were at once ap- 
pointed to proceed to Tientsin. Lord Elgin met them for 
an interview on June 4th, Baron Gros the following day, and 
Mr. Reed on the 7th. The negotiations were carried forward 
with rapidity, under the steady pressure of the allied powers. 
The Russian treaty was signed on the 13th, the American on 
the 18th, the British on the 26th, and the French the next 
day. Before the end of the first week in July the foreigners 
had retired from Tientsin and returned to Shanghai. 

The Treaties of Tientsin 

The negotiations of Mr. Reed when compared either 
with those of Caleb Cushing at Macao in 1844 or with those 
of Lord Elgin, were quite without distinction. The result- 
ing treaty lacked both in detail and in thoroughness what 
were outstanding characteristics of the Treaty of Wanghia 
and also of the British treaty of Tientsin. Just as the ac- 
knowledged superiority of the Cushing treaty had made it 
the basis of China's foreign relations between 1844 and 1858, 
so the Elgin treaty became the basis of the international 
relations of the Chinese Empire for the future. The priority 
of Great Britain among the powers represented in China 
was established. The conspicuous mark of the Reed treaty 
was an exceedingly inclusive most-favored-nation provision 
which made the citizens of the United States the inheritors 
of all that had been won by allied arms, diplomacy, and a 
most careful study of the situation. 

Mr. Reed at Tientsin had three tasks before him : the re- 
vision of the treaty; the fixing of the new tariff; and the 
settlement of American claims. These tasks were made the 



WILLIAM B. REED AND THE TREATY OF TIENTSIN 315 

subjects of separate negotiations, and were settled in sep- 
arate agreements. They therefore became the natural 
divisions of our study. First let us consider the more im- 
portant settlements of the treaties themselves. 

There had been an entire unanimity among the powers 
that first in importance was the establishment of diplomatic 
representatives of the foreign powers at Peking with the 
privilege of corresponding with the Imperial Government 
on terms of perfect equality. There was little hope of re- 
moving the causes of misunderstanding and irritation be- 
tween the Imperial Government and the foreign powers so 
long as the diplomatic representatives of the powers were 
held at arm's length and treated as inferiors. The system 
which made the governor general of Canton the foreign 
minister of China seemed wholly wrong. 

With the resumption of the negotiations at Tientsin, 
Mr. Reed assumed towards the new commissioners Kwei- 
liang and Hwashana a more decided and positive tone, 
warning them that the United States which had persisted in 
a peaceful policy towards China would not be satisfied in the 
final settlement with any terms which discriminated against 
the Americans. The Chinese, on the other side, were con- 
vinced of the necessity of a conciliatory policy. Although 
still absolutely refusing to concede the right of residence in 
Peking, they agreed to a compromise which was written into 
the American treaty (Articles 4 and 5) to the eft'ect that the 
highest diplomatic representative of the United States 
would not only have the right to correspond under seal with 
the Privy Council in Peking, but that whenever business 
required he would have the right of visit and sojourn in the 
capital. By the Chinese this was regarded. as a great con- 
cession, and to Mr. Reed it seemed satisfactory. With him 
agreed Count Putiatin and Baron Gros into whose treaties, 
respectively, similar provisions were incorporated. These 
stipulations were fortified by a further agTeement that if at 
any time another power secured the full rights of residence 
at Peking, the same privilege would inure to the United 
States. 



316 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

The fundamental objection of the Chinese to admitting 
the foreign ministers to Peking appears to have been that 
it would result in a loss of prestige to the Emperor — a most 
serious matter at a time when the Empire was torn by 
ominous rebellion. Hitherto only tribute-bearing envoys 
had been admitted to Peking and their visits had been ar- 
ranged in such a way as to indicate to the Chinese people 
the manifest of supremacy of their emperor over all the 
nations. There may also have been some fear of the Eng- 
lish, that their entrance into Peking might result even in the 
overthrow of the empire itself.^ 

Lord Elgin, however, was insistent upon the stipulation 
for diplomatic residence at Peking, regarding it as 'far the 
most important matter gained by the treaty,' and even at 
the last moment he was prepared to insist upon it, though 
another show of military strength might be required to 
force the assent of the Emperor.® In the British treaty it 
was stipulated (Article 3) that "the Ambassador, Minister, 
or other Diplomatic Agent, so appointed by Her Majesty 
the Queen of Great Britain, may reside with his family and 
establishment, permanently at the capital, or may visit it 
occasionally, at the option of the British Government." 

The other point upon which Mr. Reed at Taku had met 
with the firm resistance of the Imperial Government, was 
the free navigation of the rivers, especially the Yangtze. 
The demand for this concession from China had been pecul- 
iarly an American one. It had first been proposed by Hum- 
phrey Marshall in 1853, and had been in the pro jet submit- 
ted to Tsung Lun at the Pei-ho in 1854 by Robert M. 
McLane. Dr. Parker also had been instructed to ask for it 
in 1856. On the other hand, both the British and the 
French had been more cautious jn this point. Count 
Walewski, Minister of Foreign Affairs, May 19, 1856, had 
felt that the proposed demands of Dr. Parker were probably 
more than the Chinese would grant and nearly a year earlier 
had expressed the opinion that the opening of the Yangtze 
even as far as Nanking might prove sufficient. In similar 
tone the instruction to Sir John Bowring in 1854 had only 



WILLIAM B. REED AND THE TREATY OF TIENTSIN 317 

called for the opening of the Yangtze as far as NankingJ 
Upon this question of the opening of the rivers of China to 
navigation by foreign vessels there was also a difference of 
opinion in China. S. Wells Williams wrote: ^ 

"I have no doubt, the more I see the entire bearing of the demand, 
that the Chinese may just about as well abdicate their independence 
as allow the free navigation of the Yangtze River. If they could be 
induced to encourage their own people to buy and run foreign 
steamers and schooners, the desired advantages would be gained with- 
out forcing this wrong upon them. They will have to yield, I suppose, 
and with the liberty let go for ever the integrity of their own terri- 
tory to the lust of gain and power on the part of those who ought 
to consider something of the results of their policy." 

Mr. Rutherford Alcock, the British consul at Shanghai, 
in a memorandum to Lord Elgin, expressed a similar 
opinion: ^ 

" 'The worthless character of a numerous gathering of foreigners 
of all nations, under no effective control, is a public calamity. They 
dispute the field of commerce with honester men, and convert privi- 
leges of access and trade into means of fraud and violence. In this 
career of license, unchecked by any fear of their own governments, and 
protected in a great degree by treaties, from the action of the native 
authorities,' the Chinese are the first and greatest, but by no means 
the only sufferers. There is no government or nation of the great 
European family that does not suffer in character, and in so far as 
they have any interests at stake in China, in these also both immedi- 
ately and prospectively. This is the danger which has long threatened 
the worst consequence in widespread hostility and interrupted trade.' 
Access to the inner waters will increase the evil to an enormous 
extent." 

Mr. Reed came rapidly to see the force of these argu- 
ments and did not press the matter in the renewed negotia- 
tions at Tientsin. In explaining his action to Cass, after 
reviewing the arguments already mentioned, he added: ^^ 

"Besides, I could not but feel that their assertion of a right of 
absolute sovereignty over the rivers was one that I, least of all, had 
a right to question ; and whilst I might wish to see them, as a matter 
of mere commercial interest, allow the foreigner to go and trade up 
their rivers at pleasure, yet they had a perfect right to refuse. 

In this, as in the matter of residence at Peking, Lord 
Elgin was determined. Almost at the last minute before 



318 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

signing the British treaty the Chinese Gommissioners re- 
ceived from Peking a refusal to grant the right of residence 
and the expression of a desire, on the part of the Emperor, 
to defer the question of the navigation of the Yangtze until 
the rebellion had been suppressed. Kweiliang and Hwa- 
shana feared that their own lives might be the forfeit if 
they were to sign away these concessions to Great Britain, 
and they asked Gount Putiatin and Mr. Reed to take to 
Lord Elgin a statement of the case, and to urge him to recede 
from his demands.* The French treaty already drafted and 
approved, though not signed, had not included such an 
unlimited concession. ^^ The two neutral envoys, therefore, 
took the matter up with Baron Gros and he ventured to 
approach Lord Elgin on the subject, yet with no success. 
Lord Elgin himself, in a letter to his family, records his 
answer to Baron Gros's intervention: ^- 

"I sent for the Admiral; gave him a hint that there was a great 
opportunity for England ; that all the Powers were deserting me on a 
point which they had all, in their original applications to Peking, 
demanded, and which they all intended to claim if I got it; that 
therefore we had it in our power to claim our place of priority in the 
East, by obtaining this when others would not insist on it. Would 
he back me? . . . This was the forenoon of Saturday, 26th. The 
treaty was signed in the evening." 

"The British treaty stipulated, Article 10, that as soon 
as peace had been restored in the rebellious territory, British 
vessels should be admitted to the Yangtze as far as Hankow, 
and that the port of Chingkiang, even then held by the 
Imperial Government, should in any event be opened at the 
end of a year from the signing of the treaty. The French 
treaty called for the opening of Nanking as soon as it should 
be recaptured from the rebels.^ ^ 

Closely associated with the opening of the Yangtze 
was access to the interior of the Empire. In the earlier 
negotiations for the revision of the treaties, in 1854 
and 1856, the American representatives had proposed the 
unlimited opening of the Empire. The objectionp co this 

*S. Wells Williams states that the Imperial Commissioners were told that 
it would be worse than useless for Putiatin and Reed to interfere in their 
dealings with Lord Elgin. 



WILLIAM B. REED AND THE TREATY OF TIENTSIN 319 

were similar to those against the opening of the rivers to 
navigation, and in the American treaty of Tientsin there is 
no reference to it. In view of earlier American demands, 
Mr, Reed's comments on provisions in the British and 
French treaties for travel in the interior are interesting. 
He wrote: ^^ 

"This [access to the interior] is provided for in both the English 
and French treaties, and, of course, with its limitations, inures to us. 
The provision of the former treaty is very comprehensive for, with 
the limitation of requiring a passport, the form of which the consuls 
and not the Chinese are to determine, any foreigner may go anywhere 
in China 'for pleasure, or for purposes of trade, and may hire vessels 
for the carriage of his baggage or merchandise." No routes are speci- 
fied; no limit to the character or amount of merchandise which may 
be taken into the interior, and there is nothing to prevent a foreigner 
— Englishman, Frenchman, Russian, or American — from unloading 
his ship load of cottons or, if he happen to be unscrupulous, of opium, 

at Shanghai, or , when it shall be opened, and carrying it in 

one or a fleet of junks, or small craft steamers, to the frontiers of 
Thibet, or by the grand canal to Tientsin and Peking, or in short, any- 
where, selling it as he goes along. But this is not all. He carries 
with him his 'extraterritoriality' ; for the article which provides for 
his transit in the interior also provides for his immunity. 'If,' says 
the British treaty, 'he shall commit any offense against the law, he 
shall be handed over to the nearest consul for punishment, but he 
must not be subjected to ill-usage in excess of necessary restraint.' 
This rendered into plain language means that the foreigner who com- 
mits a rape or murder a thousand miles from the sea-board is to be 
gently restrained, and remitted to a consul for trial, necessarily at a 
remote point where testimony could hardly be obtained or relied on. 
These are the abuses and dangers which this new system of unlimited 
intercourse seems to foreshadow. ..." 

Upon the subject of extraterritoriality Mr. Reed enter- 
tained very strong convictions. He did not deny the neces- 
sity for such concessions as had been obtained by Sir Henry 
Pottinger in 1842 and by Caleb Gushing in 1844, but he 
found the American abuse of the privileges had been wholly 
disgraceful. He wrote: ^^ 

". . . no greater wrong could be done to a weak nation, no clearer 
violation of the letter and spirit of a treaty, than claiming exemption 
from the local law for our citizens who commit crime, and then failing 
to punish them ourselves. We extort from China 'extraterritoriality,' 
the amenability of guilty Americans to our law, and then we deny "to 
our judicial officers the means of punishing them. There are consular 
courts in China to try American thieves and burglars and murderers. 



320 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

but there is not a single jail where the thief or burglar may be con- 
fined. Our consuls in this, as in many other particulars, have to ap- 
peal to the English or French liberality, and it often happens that the 
penitentiary accommodations of England and France are inadequate 
to their own necessities, and the American culprit is dischargecl. 
Hence it follows that many claim the privilege of American citizen- 
ship, in order to have the benefit of this immunity, and every vaga- 
bond Englishman, Irishman, or Scotchman, any one who, speaking our 
language, can make out a prima facie claim to citizenship, commits 
crime_ according to his inclination, secure that if he is tried in the 
American courts there is no power of punishment. ... 

"I consider the exaction of *ex-territoriality' from the Chinese, so 
long as the United States refuse or neglect to provide the means of 
punishment, an opprobrium of the worst kind. It is as bad as the 
coolie or opium trade. Were it not that I have strong confidence that 
when this matter is fully understood Congress will apply the remedy, 
I should be ashamed to put my name to a treaty which asserts this 
boasted privilege of 'ex-territoriality.' " 

In the revision of the articles of the treaty bearing on 
extraterritoriality Mr. Reed inserted an additional provision, 
as a protection to China, by which it became lawful for 
Chinese as well as American officers to arrest an American 
citizen, but this slight alteration in the treaty could, by 
itself, do little to redeem the American name from the dis- 
grace into which it had fallen in the preceding decade. 

At Taku the Chinese Commissioners had agreed to the 
opening of seven new ports : Tai-wan and Tam-sui in For- 
mosa; Hai-kau on the island of Hainan; and on the main- 
land, Tienpeh and Swatow in Kwang-tung, Tsienchow in 
Fukien, and Wanchow in Chekiang.^*^ At Tientsin, how- 
ever, Kweiliang and Hwashana, for some unexplained 
reason, receded from the previous liberality and would allow 
Mr, Reed only two ports, the same to be chosen from those 
already mentioned at Taku. Accordingly, in the American 
treaty, the only additional ports opened were Swatow and 
Tai-wan. Lord Elgin, who proposed to do nothing by 
halves, although for some strange reason he omitted Tien- 
tsin from his list, secured the opening of no less than eleven 
new ports. Two of these, Tang-chow and Newchwang, 
afforded outlets for Shantung and Manchuria, opening up a 
trade along the coast northwards, fifteen hundred miles 
above Shanghai. Incorporated also in the British treaty 



WILLIAM B. REED AND THE TREATY OF TIENTSIN 321 

were reduction of tonnage dues, and rights of exportation 
which, in Mr. Reed's judgment, would be hkely to transfer 
most of the coasting trade of China from native to foreign 
vessels, which were already being preferred on account of 
their speed, safety from pirates, insurability and cheapness. 
Mr. Reed also believed that by these regulations the small 
American vessels on the coast would have an advantage over 
all others. In these expectations his hopes were largely 
realized. China was compelled to surrender not only her 
rights to the exclusive navigation of her rivers, but also to 
open her coasting trade — privileges which the United States 
had been accustomed to guard most jealously. 

The nearest claim to distinction for the American treaty, 
unless it be a distinction to have abstained from demanding 
the above mentioned privileges of the British treaty, lay in 
the article granting religious toleration, which will be dealt 
with in a subsequent chapter. 

A clause in Article 1 of the American treaty stipulated: 
"if any other nation should act unjustly or oppressively, the 
United States will exert their good offices, on being informed 
of the case, to bring about an amicable arrangement of the 
question, thus showing their friendly feelings." This be- 
came the subject of much ironical comment, which, had the 
clause been inserted by the Americans, would have been 
quite justified when one considers the circumstances under 
which the treaty was signed. But this clause was added 
to the text by one of the assistants of Kweiliang and 
Hwashana.^'^ Such action on the part of the Chinese must 
not, however, be taken for more than it was worth. Al- 
though it had been a cardinal point in American policy 
since the days of Caleb Cushing's negotiations at Macao 
and before, to win just such confidence from China as this 
clause would seem to indicate, it actually meant in TS58" 
little more than that the shrewd Chinese diplomat was seek- 
ing to pay a compliment to the United States and possibly 
isolate them from the European powers. A few months 
later Mr. Williams, then acting as Charge, wrote to Mr. 
Cass:i« 



322 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

"It is quite a mistake to suppose that the rulers of China have 
any regard for one nation more than another; that they are more 
friendly, for instance, towards the Americans than towards the 
English; they may, perhaps, fear the English and Russians more than 
they do the Americans, but they would be glad if none of them ever 
came near them." 

It cannot be denied, however, that the American treaty 
of Tientsin did lay the basis for the friendship between 
China and the United States which grew rapidly in the 
next decade. Yet from the smashing blow which had been 
dealt to China in the British treaty of 1858 no friend could 
rescue her. Even had she chosen to make a friend of the 
United States fourteen years earlier, there was little that 
could have been done to save her. The Empire had brought 
the calamity upon itself. China has ever been the despair 
of her friends. This fact, however, mitigates the responsi- 
bility neither of Great Britain which had acted with so little 
regard for the evil consequences of such an opening up of 
the Empire, nor of the United States which sent an envoy to 
play the part of Saul holding the coats of those who com- 
mitted the assault. That China in later years received 
benefits from the breaking down of her walls of pride and 
exclusion is undeniable, but it is equally undeniable that 
much of the evil that followed in its train might have been 
avoided had Lord Elgin been less possessed of the deter- 
mination to chastise an ancient Empire and to establish 
once for all the priority of Great Britain in the' Far East. 

The Revised Tariff — Legalization of the Opium Trade 

In the American Treaty of Tientsin it was agreed that the 
tariff annexed to the Treaty of Wanghia was to continue 
"except so far as it may be modified by treaties with other 
nations; it being expressly stipulated that citizens of the 
United States shall never pay higher duties than those paid 
by the most favored nation" (Article 15). In the treaty 
with Russia the tariff question was covered merely by the 
insertion of a most-favored-nation agreement. To the 
French treaty there had been annexed as a provisional tariff 



WILLIAM B. REED AND THE TREATY OF TIENTSIN 323 

a schedule similar to the one adopted in the French Treaty 
of Whampoa (1844), with the understanding that it would 
be replaced by a new tariff to be determined subsequently 
at Shanghai. Lord Elgin was much more specific. In the 
British treaty (Article 26) it was stipulated that the Em- 
peror was to delegate a high officer of the board of revenue 
to meet representatives of the British Government at 
Shanghai for the purpose of revising the tariff with a view 
to bringing it into harmony with a five per cent ad valorem 
rate.* 

The British treaty also included an agreement (Article 
28) for the regulation of transit dues — a vexed question 
which had caused a great deal of irritation to merchants of 
all nations, especially since the outbreak of the Taiping 
rebellion when local governments were greatly in need of 
additional revenues. Mr. Reed had felt that it was impos- 
sible to regulate the transit dues by treaty/^ but Lord Elgin 
was not so easily satisfied. He secured an agreement that in 
no case were these dues to exceed two and one half per cent 
ad valorem, and that British merchants should have the 
right to pay in one sum the entire transit taxes for goods 
consigned inland (Article 28). To have enforced this 
article China would have been compelled to reorganize the 
entire fiscal system of the Empire. In practice the stipula- 
tion was the source of perennial irritation. 

The Emperor appointed Kweiliang and Hwashana who 
had negotiated the treaties of Tientsin to represent China 
in the tariff revision conferences, but the actual work was 
done by secretaries and subordinates who conferred with 
Mr. Thomas Wade, representing Great Britain, and Dr. S. 
Wells Williams who, at the invitation of Lord Elgin, was 
delegated to represent the United States informally. Mr. 
H. N. Lay, formerly of the British consular service and now 
of the Foreign Board of Inspectorate of Customs at Shang- 
hai, was also a member of the conference. 

*The tariff of 1843, while imposing specific duties, had aimed to establish 
approximately a Ave per cent ad valorem rate. Since the fixing of that schedule 
the prices of various articles in China had, for the most part, fallen, so that 
in 1858 many of the specific duties were actually more than five per cent 
reckoned on an ad valorem basis. 



324 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

Although Mr. Reed shifted entirely to Lord Elgin the 
responsibility for the revision of the tariff and for fixing the 
specific rates for the transit tax, and avoided becoming a 
party to the negotiations between Lord Elgin and the two 
Chinese Commissioners, he thought it well to include the 
tariff, when it was completed, in the form of a 'supplemen- 
tary convention' which had the force of a treaty. To this 
proposal the Chinese assented.^" The general tendency of 
the new tariff was sHghtly to reduce the duties which had 
previously been in force, and the details are relatively unim- 
portant. More important than the tariff itself was the pro- 
vision made for the reorganization of the Foreign Inspector- 
ate of Chinese Customs, and the extension of the system, 
which had hitherto been operative only at Shanghai, to the 
other open ports. Many American merchants strongly 
objected to the system for no very apparent reason other 
than that it was effective and reduced the possibilitjes of 
smuggling, but Mr. Reed, after careful investigation, gave 
his cordial assent to its extension. 

The revised tariff was most notable in that it provided 
for what had so long been desired by Great Britain and by 
the foreigners generally in China^ — the legalization of the 
opium trade. The part played by the American envoy in 
effecting this legalization requires attention. The instruc- 
tions received by Mr. Reed from Secretary of State Cass on 
the subject of the opium trade, while more vague were 
broadly similar to those which had been given to Caleb 
Cushing by Webster.^^ 

"Upon proper occasions you will make known to the Chinese 
officers with whom you may have communication that the Government 
of the United States does not seek for their citizens the legal estab- 
lishment of the opium trade, nor will it uphold them in any attempt 
to violate the laws of China by the introduction of that article into 
the country." 

In the first draft of the proposed treaty presented at 
Taku there was inserted an article 'denouncing and forbid- 
ding' the opium trade by American citizens,-" but at Tien- 
tsin this article was withdrawn and in the treaty as signed 



WILLIAM B. REED AND THE TREATY OF TIENTSIN 325 

there was no reference to opium.* Lord Elgin, although he 
had been definitely instructed to secure the legalization of 
the trade, had abstained from inserting any reference to it 
in the text of the treaty. Until the revision of the tariff, 
therefore, the status of the opium trade remained as it had 
been since the treaties of 1842-4. But in the revised tariff 
the trade in opium was legalized by the following rule: 

"Opium will henceforth pay thirty taels per picul Import Duty. 
The importer will sell it only at the port. It will be carried into the 
interior by Chinese only, and only as Chinese property; the foreign 
trader will not be allowed to accompany it. The provisions of Article 
9 of the Treaty of Tientsin, by which British subjects are authorized 
to proceed into the interior with passports to trade, will not extend 
to it, nor will those of Article 28 of the same Treaty, by which the 
Transit Dues are regulated. The Transit Dues on it will be arranged 
as the Chinese Government see fit; nor in future revisions of the 
Tariff is the same rule of revision to be applied to Opium as to other 
goods." 

While Mr. Reed could not be held wholly accountable 
for the insertion of the above rule, he not only approved of 
it but even initiated the correspondence with Lord Elgin in 
which he recommended the legalization of the traffic, thus 
reversing himself and in a measure violating the instructions 
of his government. His reasons were that between two evils 
— the legalization of the trade, and the existing open defi- 
ance of the Gushing treaty in which Americans were dealing 
in the drug at every port and carrying it along the coast 
under the American flag — legalization of the trade with 
heavy duties and the exclusion of foreigners from the trans- 
portation and sale of the drug in the interior was preferable. 
It was Mr. Reed's idea that the Chinese would, under the 
proposed regulation, be better able than formerly to restrict 
the importation by fixing a high tariff and by the control 
of their own merchants. The American Commissioner was 
debating, as related to a drug, the old and also modern 
question of the relative merits of ineffective prohibition as 
compared with high license and regulation. If Mr. Reed 

*In the Treaty of Wanghia trading in opium had been prohibited to Ameri- 
can citizens, and in the annexed tariff opium had been included in the list of 
contraband articles. 



326 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

was on the wrong side of the argument there is no reason 
whatever to suppose that his error was any other than that 
of judgment, and with him stood many foreigners of long 
experience in China who could be charged with no friendli- 
ness towards the opium trade. Dr. Williams in a letter to 
his wife said: ^^ 

"By this tariff you will perhaps be surprised to learn that opium 
is legalized and pays thirty taels per picul as import duty. The 
Chinese Government has yielded in its long resistance to permitting 
this drug to be entered through the customs house, the opium war of 
1840 ending in the Treaty of Nanking has triumphed, and the 
honorable English merchants and government can now exonerate 
themselves from the opprobrium of smuggling this article. Bad as 
the triumph is, I am convinced that it is the best disposition of this 
perplexing question; legalization is preferred to the evils attending 
the farce now played, and throwing ridicule on the laws against 
it by sending the revenue boats to the opium hulks to receive a duty 
or bribe from the purchaser." 

Although the full correspondence of Mr. Reed with ref- 
erence to the legalization of the opium trade was not only 
reported at the State Department but also published in 
1860, the action of the American plenipotentiary seems to 
have aroused no general adverse comment in the United 
States. 

- Settlement of Claims 

Of the two primary reasons which dispatched Mr. Reed 
to China in 1857, the revision of the treaty and the settle- 
ment of claims due to American citizens, the latter was the 
more easily to be defended, and the settlement obtained pre- 
sented the brighter page in the history of the relations 
between the United States and China. 

The first official settlement of the claims of American 
citizens against the Government of China was secured by 
Commodore Lawrence Kearny in the winter of 1842-3, and 
amounted to about a quarter of a million dollars. ^^ These 
claims had arisen out of injuries suffered by Americans at 
the time of hostilities between the English and the Chinese 
in the first Anglo-Chinese War, and also from the depreda- 
tions of a mob at Canton in 1842. Commodore Kearny 



WILLIAM B. REED AND THE TREATY OF TIENTSIN 327 

made a peremptory demand for the payment of the losses, 
and the demand was complied with. There was no examin- 
ation of the claims with a view to the determination of 
their value. 

Shortly after the exchange of ratifications of the Treaty 
of Wanghia, a mob attacked and pillaged the house of the 
Rev. Issachar J. Roberts, a missionary who subsequently 
became associated with the Taiping rebellion. The claim 
presented by Roberts was regarded as excessive, and an 
award was made by a joint commission composed of Ameri- 
cans and Chinese. The Imperial High Commissioner, how- 
ever, was unwilling to settle. Commissioner John W. Davis 
in 1848 again presented the claim to the Viceroy who again 
refused to pay. Davis then referred the matter to Washing- 
ton with a request for instructions. The Department of 
State was somewhat in doubt as to the strength of the 
Roberts claim, and instructed Commissioner Humphrey 
Marshall to investigate and report as to whether it and two 
others were "of such a character as to warrant the ofl&cial 
interposition of the government." ^^ Marshall was of the 
opinion that the claim ought to be enforced, and reported 
that to enforce it he was prepared to blockade the port of 
Canton, if necessary, "in fine, to collect the money by any 
means short of war," "^^ but nothing was done. Withhold- 
ing payment for duties was strongly urged by Commissioner 
Robert L. McLane, as the most effective method for securing 
the payment of the claims which, while still not large, had 
greatly increased by the end of 1854.^7 In case the Chinese 
should attempt to retaliate by threatening to stop the trade 
as they had in the old pre-treaty days, he recommended that 
the naval forces of the United States should be used to sup- 
port the action of the commissioner. This method of 
coercing the Chinese authorities was used in several in- 
stances by the various consuls without authority from the 
commissioner. In January, 1856, the consul at Shanghai 
reported that he had collected a claim of $18,000 by stop- 
ping intercourse with the taotai for two weeks. ^^ At about 
the same time the American consuls at Amoy and Shanghai 



328 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

threatened to use similar measures either to collect claims 
or to secure the attention of the Chinese authorities, but 
this method was promptly frowned on by the Government 
of the United States, and Dr. Parker was instructed to forego 
such belligerent methods. ^^ The consuls were reluctant to 
surrender such an effective weapon and the unauthorized 
action of the American consul at Foochow in 1857 in with- 
holding duties almost resulted in the declaration of Foochow 
as a free port.^^ As the time for the revision of the treaty 
drew near, the instructions from Washington were that the 
settlement of claims must not be pushed to a point with 
the Chinese authorities which would jeopardize the revision 
of the treaty. 

A third possible method for the settlement of claims was 
outlined by Dr. Peter Parker in a confidential communica- 
tion to Sir John Bowring at the end of December, 1856.^^ 
With reference to the losses which had been suffered by the 
Americans in the British attack on Canton in the preceding 
month. Dr. Parker proposed that the British Government 
should assume these claims and collect them from the Gov- 
ernment of China along with those of their own citizens. 
This proposal to have the British Government collect 
American claims was promptly repudiated by Lewis Cass, 
Secretary of State, in his instructions to Mr. Reed.^^ 

At the time of the negotiations for the revision of the 
treaty Mr. Reed found the Chinese authorities at first quite 
unwilling to admit the validity of the claims of Americans 
for losses suffered during the existing war. They implied 
that for these losses the English were responsible and that 
Great Britain rather than China ought to make the repara- 
tions.^^ Subsequently the Chinese authorities sought to 
place the responsibility entirely upon the local authorities 
where the losses had occurred. This was in accordance with 
Chinese law, or custom, for the central government did not 
usually assume such responsibility for local affairs. If the 
local Chinese officials had done wrong, they argued, then 
they ought to make reparations out of the local revenues.^^ 
Mr. Reed yielded to Kweiliang and Hwashana on this point, 



WILLIAM B. REED AND THE TREATY OF TIENTSIN 329 

and the Treaty of Tientsin was signed without any settle- 
ment of the claims. 

Immediately after the signing of the treaty, however, 
Mr. Reed renewed the discussion. At first the commis- 
sioners were disposed to evade the matter but on the 25th 
day of June they entered into an agreement for settlement 
to "be considered as of the same force and virtue as if it was 
embodied in the treaty." This agreement stipulated that 
claims for indemnity to the amount of 600,000 taels should 
be liquidated by deducting one fifth of all the tonnage, 
import and export duties, which were paid by American 
ships at the three ports of Canton, Foochow and Shanghai. 
These deductions were to be made by the consuls and the 
total amount was to be reported by the American minister 
each year to the Chinese authorities until the entire amount 
of the claims had been settled. 

Mr. Reed was not entirely satisfied with this settlement 
and therefore reopened the question a few months later at 
Shanghai.^^ First he asked from the American claimants for 
revised statements and was able to reduce the estimated 
damages from 600,000 to 525,000 taels. Kweiliang and 
Hwashana, not unwilling to do a little bargaining, then 
agreed that if the total amount would be reduced to 500,000 
taels, they on their part would agree to the issuing of 
debentures, 300,000 taels for Canton, and 100,000 taels each 
for Foochow and Shanghai, and for the gradual payment of 
them out of the customs revenue from American vessels 
beginning with the following New Year (February 3, 1859). 
Mr. Reed then recommended to the President of the United 
States that a commission of two be appointed to examine 
the claims in detail and make final awards. This recom- 
mendation was accepted, approved by Congress, and the 
commission appointed. 

One other indication of the spirit in which Mr. Reed 
approached the settlement of these claims is to be found in a 
passage in his address before the Philadelphia Board of 
Trade after his return to the United States. The claims, 
representing the bulk of the total, which arose out of the 



330 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

British attack upon Canton in 1856, Mr. Reed undertook 
to support only with reluctance. He said: ^^ 

"The total amount of our pecuniary claims . . . never amounted 
to a million dollars, and did not at the beginning of the war amount 
to more than a fifth of that sum, for you will recollect the bulk of our 
claims are of recent occurrence, for loss of property at the factories, 
when the Chinese were defending their own soil, and for which they 
are only responsible on the un-Christian principle of English and 
American public law, that the assailed party always pays the dam- 
ages." 

However, so eminent an authority as John W. Foster re- 
marked, many years later, that notwithstanding the various 
reductions of the claims, and the close examination to which 
they were finally subjected, ''many of those allowed were of 
questionable validity in international law." ^^ 

The claims commissioners were Charles W. Bradley, 
American consul at Ningpo, and Oliver E. Roberts, lately 
of the customs service. They began their hearings at 
Macao, November 10, 1859, and the report was submitted 
to the American minister February 27, 1860. The entire 
amount of the awards totalled $489,694.78, thus leaving a 
balance of about $220,000 which, when paid by the Chinese 
customs authorities, was deposited in the Oriental Bank of 
Hongkong.* ^^ 

♦While the final disposition of this surplus money was not settled until 
1885 when, with some further deductions for claims subsequently allowed, the 
surplus and accumulated interest, amounting to $453,400, was returned to China 
by the act of Congress, it is of interest to note various proposals which were 
made in the interval for the disposition of this money. When S. Wells Williams 
Was in Washington in 1860 he submitted to the Secretary of State an outline 
for the utilization of it in the establishment of an American-Chinese College 
in China in which Chinese students should be instructed in Western learning, 
and in which American students could receive such instruction as would fit 
them for positions in the consular, diplomatic, customs and commercial life of 
China. Anson Burlingame supported this proposition, and it seems to have met 
with the approval of President Lincoln. Congress, however, took no action on 
it. Another proposal was that the money should be used to build American 
consulates and a legation in China, but this was rejected on the ground that 
the money really belonged to China. However, the first money paid over for 
the purchase of the present legation in Peking was taken from this fund, 
though it was afterwards returned to the fund by order of the Secretary of 
State. Still another proposal was that the money be held as a fund out of 
Which any claims arising in the future might be paid. This also was discarded 
on the ground that the Government of China ought always to be made to feel 
the direct responsibility for the settlement of any claims which might arise. 
The most notable proposal, of course, was that involving the creation of an 
American-Chinese College, for in it was clearly foreshadowed the system of 
'indemnity students' for which provision was made at the time of the return 
of the Boxer Indemnity surplus nearly 50 years later.^" The balance of the 1858 
indemnity was returned by act of Congress in 1885, two years after the return 
of the Japanese 'ndemnity. 



I 



WILLIAM B. REED AND THE TREATY OF TIENTSIN 331 

Thus was settled between the United States and China 
a difficult problem "without the utterance of a single harsh 
word." 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

1. The important American sources for this chapter are: Reed 

Corres., published in full (S. Ex. Doc. No. 30:36-1); Journal 
of S. Wells Williams, edited by F. W. Williams (Journal of 
the North-China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 
XLII, Shanghai, 1911) ; W. A. P. Martin : "A Cycle of Ca- 
thay" ; Speech of Hon. W. B. Reed at Board of Trade, Phila- 
delphia, May 31, 1859. 

2. George Wingrove Cooke: "China," p. 380. 

3. Reed. Corres., pp. 21-22. 

4. Ibid., p. 299. 

5. Williams' Journal, p. 54. 

6. Walrond: "Life and Letters of Lord Elgin," p. 253. 

Y. Cordier: "L'Expedition de Chine," p. 11, p. 8; Morse: Vol. 1, 
p. 672. 

8. Williams' Journal, p. 75. 

9. Cited by Sargent: Anglo-Chinese Commerce and Diplomacy, 

p. 102. 

10. Reed Corres., p. 352. 

11. Williams' Journal, p. 77. 

12. Walrond, p. 253. 

13. Reed Corres., p. 385. 

14. Ihid., p. 384. 

15. Ibid., p. 355. 

16. Ibid., p. 311. 

17. Williams' Journal, p. 61; "Cycle of Cathay," p. 183. 

18. Reed Corres., p. 549. 

19. Ibid., p. 358. 

20. Ibid., pp. 442, 493. 

21. Ibid., pp. 8-9. 

22. "Cycle of Cathay," p. 184. 

23. Williams' Journal, p. 96. 

24. S. Doc. 139:29-1. 

25. China Instructions, Vol. 1, Sept. 20, 1852 (Dept. of State); 

Marshall Corres., p. 223, July 30, 1853. 

26. Marshall Corres., pp. 277, 283. 

27. McLane Corres., p. 458. 

28. Parker Corres., p. 549. 

29. Ibid., pp. 546, 637, 677. 

30. Ibid., pp. 1162, 1291, 1351, 1420; Reed Corres., pp. 34, 35, 36, 99. 

31. Parker Corres., pp. 1098, 1099. 

32. Reed Corres., pp. 13, 14. 

33. Ibid., pp. 300, 310, 316, 317. 

34. Ibid., pp. 371 ff. 

35. Ibid., pp. 520 fi. 



332 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

36. Speecli of William B. Eeed, p. 5. 

37. "American Diplomacy in the Orient," p. 244. 

38. Claims Report : H. Ex. Doc. No. 29 :40-3. 

39. Diplomatic Corres., 1862, p. 843; 1864, p. 346; 1867, pp. 459, 507; 

1868, p. 510; 1871, p. 226; 1872, p. 136; 1885, pp. 181, 182. H. 
Rept. 970:48-1; see also H. Rept. 113:45-3; H. Rept. 
1142 :46-2. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

WAED AND TATTNALL— EXCHANGE OF EATIFICATIONS 

The American Treaty of Tientsin was approved by the 
Senate and ratified by President Buchanan December 21, 
1858. William B. Reed dispatched his resignation to the 
President even before he began the negotiations for the 
treaty. To John E. Ward of Georgia/ who had been the 
presiding officer at the convention which nominated 
Buchanan for the presidency,- now confirmed as Minister to 
China, was given the task of exchanging the ratifications. 
Under normal circumstances this duty would not have been 
difficult. The treaty and the two supplementary conven- 
tions covering the tariff and the settlement of claims had 
been approved by the Imperial Government before Mr. 
Reed left China, and was already recognized as having the 
force of law. To the Chinese, unaccustomed to the methods 
of European diplomacy, the exchange of ratifications, prob- 
ably, did not seem to be a very important matter. 

The Conflict Renev^ed 

But before Mr. Ward had arrived in China the impres- 
sion had become prevalent among the foreigners that China 
would make some effort to evade the fulfillment of the 
treaties, at least so far as concerned the permission for 
diplomatic residence in Peking. Whether this suspicion 
was well grounded in actual facts, or whether it grew out of 
the feeling, so widely prevalent, that in the affair at Taku 
the Imperial Government had come off too easily, and that 
China had not yet been sufficiently chastised, admits of 
dispute. It is at least clear that at the beginning of 1859 

333 



334 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

the foreigners, particularly the English in China, were ex- 
pecting more trouble. 

Mr. Ward reached Hongkong in May, 1859, and an- 
nounced his arrival to Frederick W. A. Bruce, Lord Elgin's 
brother, now British Minister to China, and to M. de Bour- 
boulon, the French Minister who was at Macao. Wishing, 
however, to avoid complications with the British Govern- 
ment which were threatened by the hostility of American 
and British sailors in the port, Mr. Ward departed almost 
immediately for Shanghai where the Chinese Commission- 
ers, Kweiliang, Hwashana and Tan, who had negotiated 
the tariff with Lord Elgin a few months before, were stay- 
ing. The American Minister addressed them a formal com- 
munication to the effect that he was in possession of the 
ratified copy of the Treaty of Tientsin "which he has been 
instructed to exchange at Peking," and that he also had a 
letter from the President to the Emperor which he expected 
to deliver to his Imperial Majesty.^ 

It did not seem to have occurred to Mr. Ward that there 
was nothing in the American Treaty of Tientsin which 
guaranteed him the right of a personal audience with the 
Emperor, nor did he realize, probably, that in raising such 
a question, he was directly stirring up a controversy — the 
right of audience with the Emperor — which involved the 
most cherished Chinese prejudices. Even in his assertion 
of right to exchange the ratifications of the treaty in Peking, 
he was on most uncertain ground. The American treaty 
(Article 30) merely stipulated that the ratifications should 
be exchanged within one year from the date of the signa- 
tures, i.e., before June 18, 1859. The place for this ceremony 
was not named. It is true that the treaty also provided 
that the American Minister could go to Peking 'whenever 
he has business' but this was safeguarded by the further 
stipulation that he should not 'request visits to the capital 
on trivial occasions' (Article 5). 

The British treaty specified that the exchange of ratifi- 
cations should take place at Peking within one year, and the 
provision of the French treaty was similar. But while the 



WARD AND TATTNALL— RATIFICATIONS 335 

American treaty was loaded down with numerous 'most- 
favored-nation' clauses, under them it could not be held that 
the Americans had any rights included in the other treaties 
until those treaties had been ratified. Mr. Ward was there- 
fore clearly outside his rights in his intentions to proceed to 
Peking to have an audience with the Emperor, and the right 
to exchange ratifications in Peking depended entirely upon 
whether such a ceremony was of sufiicient importance to be 
dignified by such a settling. At Shanghai Ward argued this 
point with the Commissioners who at once appeared rather 
reluctant to have him proceed to the North. 

The Commissioners stated that they had remained in 
Shanghai to complete some business with Lord Elgin, and 
gently urged Ward to delay a while in Shanghai. At an 
interview a few days later they repeated their explanations ; 
they had promised Lord Elgin to remain in Shanghai until 
his return from Hongkong. He had not returned but Mr. 
Bruce had been appointed in Lord Elgin's stead and would 
be in Shanghai in a very short time. After their business 
with Mr. Bruce was finished they would go to Peking and 
there await the arrival of the allied ministers whose treaties 
provided that the ratifications were to be exchanged in 
Peking. It would be entirely agreeable to the Chinese Gov- 
ernment to have Mr. Reed accompany the other two minis- 
ters, so that the three ratifications might be exchanged 
together. Although at first Mr. Ward had been reluctant to 
consent to such an arrangement he at length agreed, pro- 
vided the commissioners would give him a statement that 
the validity of the treaty would in no way be affected by 
this delay in the exchange of the ratifications.^ 

From this point onward in the narrative not only are 
nearly all the facts a matter of dispute, but equally so is the 
interpretation of such facts as can be established. The 
Chinese version of the situation as it appears in the official 
dispatches of Mr. Ward and in the accounts of Dr. S. Wells 
Williams, who was present with the American Minister, 
vary widely from the assertions which were placed before 
the British Government and offered in England as the justi- 



336 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

fication of the second Anglo-French War with China in 
1859-60. 

The Chinese explanation of the situation, which has 
never been systematically set forth in histories of the 
period, is as follows : When Mr. Bruce arrived at Shanghai 
early in June prepared to push to Peking, the Chinese Com- 
missioners agreed (June 6) that the ratifications should be 
exchanged in Peking but they desired to have settled before 
going there certain matters with reference to Canton which 
still remained in the hands of the English and French. 
"But as Canton is not yet restored," they remarked, *'it 
would seem that no time should be lost in arriving at a 
satisfactory decision regarding it." On the same day, in a 
separate communication, the Imperial Commissioners stated 
that although ample arrangements for the reception of the 
British legation at Peking would be made, the exchange of 
ratifications had been assigned to them exclusively. No 
one could act as their substitute. It would be impossible, 
they stated courteously, for them to reach Peking for at 
least two months.^ 

In his reply to these communications, Mr. Bruce im- 
mediately assumed that the Commissioners were acting in 
bad faith. 

"It is with regret that the undersigned finds," he stated, "at the 
outset of a mission sent by her Brittanic Majesty as evidence of her 
desire for peaceful relations, that he is met, not as he has a right to 
expect, with a cordial and frank invitation to the capital, but with 
delays and hesitations ill-calculated to cement a good understanding.* 
The undersigned will not, however, swerve in the least from the course 
he has laid down in his letter of the 18th ultimo. He is resolved to 
proceed forthwith to Peking, there to exchange the ratifications of the 
treaty, and to deliver in person the letter intrusted to his charge by 
his gracious sovereign to his Imperial Majesty, to whom it is ad- 
dressed, nor will he quit the capital until satisfied that effect will be 
given without reserve to every provision of the Treaty of Tientsin." 

Mr. Bruce then notified the Commissioners that Admiral 
Hope, Commander in Chief of the British naval forces, -had 
already started for the mouth of the Pei-ho, and warned 
them that upon the Chinese Government must rest the 
entire responsibility for any trouble that might arise. 



WARD AND TATTNALL— RATIFICATIONS 337 

The question of fact is whether the Chinese Government 
was actually sincere in its promise that the British and 
French ministers would be received in Peking according to 
the provisions of the treaty. The Russian minister, Nicho- 
las Ignatieff, who could hardly be called an unbiased wit- 
ness, but whose testimony in this case seems clear, stated 
(July 7) : « 

". . . preparations had been made here to receive, for the ratifica- 
tions of the treaties of Tientsin, the plenipotentiaries of America, of 
France and of England. Lodgings had been arranged, by order of 
the Emperor, for the three embassies." 

Whatever may have been the intentions of the Emperor 
as regards the admission to Peking, it is evident that it was 
not the intention of the Chinese Government that the allied 
envoys should proceed to the capital by way of the Taku 
forts and the passage to Tientsin which had been utilized by 
the foreigners the year before. Nor was it the disposition 
of the Chinese to permit the allied envoys to be accompanied 
to Peking by a large military force. The treaties did not 
specify that the route must be by way of Taku, and while 
the British treaty was silent on the subject, the American 
treaty clearly limited the number of those who might accom- 
pany the minister in his visits to Peking. The Chinese 
maintained that it had been the intention of the Imperial 
Government to receive the envoys at Pehtang, a place about 
ten miles north of Taku, on another outlet of the river. 
The Governor General of Chihli stated to Mr. Ward that 
he had received orders from Peking to receive the envoys at 
Pehtang and to facilitate their journey to Peking.'^ 

S. Wells Williams, a careful observer, and the one among 
all the foreign legations most familiar with the Chinese, 
said: ^ 

"I am convinced that the intention of the Emperor and his cabinet 
has been all along in favor of permitting the envoys of the three 
powers to go to his capital to exchange their treaties. . . ." 

In reply to Mr. Bruce's communication stating that the 
British Admiral with his squadron had already proceeded 



338 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

to the Pei-ho, the Imperial Commissioners at Shanghai 
advised the British minister to proceed to the mouth of the 
Tientsin River, to ''anchor his vessel of war outside the 
bar, and then, without much baggage, and with a moderate 
retinue" to proceed to the capital. Meanwhile they would 
notify the Peking officials of the situation, and they ex- 
pressed the expectation that in view of the peaceful mission 
on which his excellency was bent, 'his treatment by the Gov- 
ernment of China will not fail to be in every way most 
courteous.' Mr. Ward was also invited 'by the Commis- 
sioners to proceed to the mouth of the Pei-ho. 

"Blood is Thicker than Water" 

Upon Mr. Ward's arrival in the U. S. frigate Powhatan 
(Commodore Josiah Tattnall) June 21, he was notified by 
Admiral Hope that the mouth of the river had been ob- 
structed with barriers. The British Admiral had issued an 
ultimatum to the authorities stating that unless they them- 
selves removed the barriers, he would have it done, accord- 
ing to instructions received from the allied envoys. Mr. 
Ward thereupon found himself faced with a dilemma similar 
to that which had confronted Mr. Reed at the same place 
the year before and he, also, decided that he must adopt 
an independent course of action.^ The American minister 
sought to announce to the Chinese authorities his presence 
and purpose. In this he was unsuccessful and the next day, 
June 24, in company with Commodore Tattnall, he set out 
in the Toeywan, a small chartered steamer, for the mouth of 
the river with a view to passing the barrier in front of the 
forts. It was his intention to proceed until he was stopped, 
but the Toeywan ran aground in a falling tide. The British 
gun-boat Plover came alongside, and warned the American 
party that they were in danger of being fired upon. The 
commanding officer offered the services of the Plover to 
Commodore Tattnall, and suggested that the party trans- 
ship to the gun-boat, proposing that Tattnall hoist the 
American flag at the Plover's peak. This offer was declined. 



WARD AND TATTNALL— RATIFICATIONS 339 

The Plover was unable to pull off the Toeywan, which was 
lying well inside the line of the British war vessels. A 
message was sent to the shore stating that the American 
minister was in the Toeywan and that he was on his way to 
Peking. The Chinese replied that passage by way of the 
river was prohibited, that there was no officer present who 
could receive a communication. They stated that it was 
rumored that the Governor General of Chihli had been 
instructed to meet the envoys at the north entrance to the 
river, some ten miles above. That evening the Toeywan 
floated and dropped down below the line of British war 
vessels. 

During the night the British made some ineffectual 
efforts to blow up the barrier, and the following afternoon 
when the British admiral started to ascend the river with 
two gun-boats the forts opened fire and the battle com- 
menced. The forts had been rebuilt and greatly strength- 
ened since their destruction the year before by the allied 
forces, and the English and French, quite unprepared for 
so great a resistance, found the battle going against them. 
About five o'clock the report reached Commodore Tattnall, 
who with his party was witnessing the fray, that Admiral 
Hope had been seriously wounded. Then ensued the soon 
internationally famous "Blood-is-thicker-than-water" epi- 
sode. 

During the progress of the battle an English officer in 
charge of a junk loaded with British troops who had not 
been ordered to advance, came on board the Toeywan for a 
better view of the battle. As the struggle began to go 
against the allies he let it be known, although he did not 
directly ask for aid, that he wished to get his junk up to the 
line of battle but was unable to do so on account of the 
strength of the tide.^° Commodore Tattnall conferred with 
Mr. Ward and the latter gave his unqualified approval to 
the suggestion that the Commodore offer the assistance of 
the Toeywan to tow up the reserves in the junks. Accord- 
ingly Tattnall transferred Mr. Ward and his suite to one of 
the barges still at anchor, and offered his services to the 



340 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

officer of the other barges to tow them into action. The 
offer was gladly accepted. 

When the Commodore reached the battle, knowing that 
Admiral Hope was wounded, his sense of the kinship of 
Caucasian blood got the better of what little sense of neu- 
trality had remained and, jumping into his boat, he ordered 
the crew to pull him away to the Cormorant where he found 
Admiral Hope utterly exhausted from his wound. In the 
process of coming alongside the British gun-boat Tattnall's 
barge was struck by a shot from the forts and the coxswain 
was killed. While another barge was being found to return 
the American party to the Toeywan, and while Commodore 
Tattnall was extending his sympathy to Admiral Hope the 
American sailors, by the Commodore's orders, assisted their 
British companions and helped to serve the guns.* Tattnall 
returned to the Toeywan and again towed up some barges, 
and later in the evening when the British stormed the forts 
the Commodore ran the Toeywan in towards shore and took 
a number of British fugitives on board. 

Three days later, "determined to leave no effort untried 
to carry into effect the strongly expressed wishes of the 
President" Mr. Ward sent some members of his suite in the 
Toeywan to find the other entrance to the river to which he 
had been already directed. Meanwhile the Chinese authori- 
ties on their own initiative communicated to Mr. Ward that 
the way to Peking by way of Pehtang was open to him. 

The British and French ministers, immediately after the 
battle at Taku, broke off negotiations with the Chinese and 
returned to Shanghai, strongly urging Mr. Ward to do Hke- 
wise. 

The American Minister Goes to Peking 

Mr. Ward, now relying on the provisions of the Ameri- 
can treaty alone, announced to the Chinese that he wished 

*The most reasonable explanation of this episode is to be found in the 
fact that the struggle of the allied forces with the Chinese had assumed in the 
eyes of both Tattnall and Ward, who were Southerners, the aspect of a conflict 
of color. An eye-witness of the episode recorded in Jois diary that Commodore 
Tattnall finally exclaimed : "Blood is thicker than water" and that he'd "be 
damned if he'd stand by and see white men butchered before his eyes. No, 
sir ; old Tattnall isn't that kind, sir. This is the cause of humanity. Is that 
boat ready? Tell the men there is no need of side-arms."" 



WARD AND TATTNALL— RATIFICATIONS 341 

to proceed to Peking upon important business, viz., the 
ratification of the treaty. In thus resting his case he was 
on solid ground, and he met with no opposition from the 
Imperial officers. However, his inexperience in China, 
coupled probably with his unwillingness to take the advice 
of Dr. Williams, soon placed him in difficulties which a more 
experienced diplomat might have avoided. The treaty pro- 
vided that the Chinese authorities should arrange for the 
conveyance of the minister to the capital — a provision which 
they were glad to comply with for the manner of the first 
entrance of an American envoy to Peking was to them an 
important matter. Mr. Ward should have demanded that 
sedan chairs be provided for the journey, for this was the 
customary mode of conveyance for the highest officers of 
the government. Being ignorant of this fact, or not realiz- 
ing its importance, he consented that the party be conveyed 
in carts. Thus the first American envoy and his suite to 
enter the Imperial capital proceeded thither in equipages 
similar to those in which rode the Korean and other tribute- 
bearing envoys in their periodical journeys to Peking, and 
to the inhabitants en route, as well as to the populace of the 
city, the party was represented as coming to pay tribute 
to the Son of Heaven.* ^^ 

Having reached Peking, Mr. Ward made another mis- 
take in immediately yielding to the desires of the Chinese 
that the mission should not go abroad in the city until after 
the audience with the Emperor. Furthermore, although the 
American flag had been brought along, it was not permitted 
to be flown over the temporary legation building. Indeed 
the American minister and his suite were practically pris- 
oners, denied the privilege of going out of the house, and 
not permitted to communicate freely with even the Russian 
minister,^^ 

Aside from these two criticisms on points which would 
in prospect seem unimportant to one not familiar with 

*William W. Rockhill states, although giving no authority for the assertion : 
"Here [Pehtang] he landed and was taken to Peking, part of the way in carts 
and part in boats ; but over the carts and boats floated an ominous little yellow 
pennant with the words : 'Tribute-bearers from the United States.' " There 
is no question but that the mission was so represented to the Chinese people. 



342 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

previous visits of embassies to Peking, Mr. Ward conHucted 
himself with credit. The Chinese decUned to discuss the 
matter of the exchange of ratifications until the question of 
the details of the audience with the Emperor had been fixed. 
The Imperial authorities demanded a modified kotow 
from Mr. Ward when he should be presented to his Imperial 
Majesty. Mr. Ward replied with firmness as well as in a 
characteristically Southern manner that although he was 
willing to 'bend the body and slightly crook the right knee,' 
he was accustomed to kneel only to God and woman .^* 
Although the Chinese persisted, Mr. Ward remained ada- 
mant on the subject of the kotow and no satisfactory com- 
promise could be reached. In the course of the prolonged 
discussion it became apparent that the Emperor was really 
more eager to see the envoy than the latter was to see his 
Imperial Highness.^ ^ At length Mr. Ward, his patience 
exhausted, demanded that conveyances be provided for his 
departure from the capital. Reluctantly the Chinese agreed, 
and the ratifications were exchanged at Pehtang at the con- 
clusion of the journey to the coast. 

After the exchange of ratifications the Chinese brought 
in an 'American prisoner' who had been captured at Taku 
in June.^*' This prisoner had been to the Chinese an evi- 
dence that in the battle of Taku the Americans had joined 
with the allies, and no doubt this conviction that the Ameri- 
cans had not maintained their neutrality had been a great 
obstacle to Mr. Ward's negotiations at Peking. But the 
American prisoner proved to be a Canadian who had not 
only asserted that he was a citizen of the United States, but 
had also told the Chinese that he had been one of a party of 
no less than two hundred Americans who had joined in the 
fight. The lack of truth in these assertions was satisfactorily 
proven to the Chinese authorities. Mr. Ward then revealed 
rather more kindliness of nature than the situation required 
by offering to take the Canadian to Shanghai and to restore 
him to his countrymen. 

Immediately upon the conclusion of the ceremonies, the 
American envoy and his suite departed from Pehtang, 



WARD AND TATTNALL— RATIFICATIONS 343 

arriving at Shanghai August 22, 1859. From this place Mr. 
Ward reported to the Secretary of State: ^^ 

"The disastrous result of the battle of the Pei-ho has done much 
to unsettle the condition of things in China. The whole manner and 
bearing of the Chinese population towards the foreigners have been 
changed, and the people of this place have been for weeks past under 
the painful apprehension of an outbreak and an attack upon the for- 
eign settlement." 

Late in 1860 Mr. Ward retired from China, hastening 
home to take part in the secession. The post of United 
States Minister in China remained vacant until the appoint- 
ment of Anson Burlingame the following year. 

Commodore Tattnall received the approval of the Secre- 
tary of the Navy for his conduct at Taku and President 
Buchanan, in reporting the conclusion of the settlement 
with China, complacently stated: ^^ 

"Our minister to China, in obedience to his instructions, has re- 
mained perfectly neutral in the war between Great Britain and 
France and the Chinese Empire, although, in conjunction with the 
Russian minister, he was ever ready and willing, had the opportunity 
offered, to employ his good offices in restoring peace between the 
parties. It is but an act of simple justice, both to our present minister 
and his predecessor, to state that they have proved fully equal to the 
delicate, trying, and responsible positions in which they have on 
different occasions been placed." 

The story of the second Anglo-French War with China 
does not require telling. In August, 1860, the allied forces 
landed at Pehtang. Having captured the Taku forts they 
advanced to Tientsin. Rapidly the allies forced their way 
towards Peking. The Emperor fled to his hunting lodge at 
Jehol. Early in October the British and French forces 
reached the capital, sacked the Summer Palace, and were 
admitted without further fighting to Peking. The Summer 
Palace, already gutted of its priceless contents, was ordered 
burned as a further ocular demonstration that the British 
Government in Asia might not safely be trifled with. In 
the ensuing settlements, additional indemnity was agreed 
to, the unreserved right of diplomatic residence in Peking 
was conceded, the French secured additional concessions for 
the Roman Catholic missionaries, and Tientsin was added 



344 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

to the list of open ports. Early in November the allied 
troops withdrew from the city. 

Beyond a doubt the great Empire of China was now 
opened, for ill and for good, to the Western World. 

Inasmuch as the close of the second Anglo-French War 
with China, and the retirement of Ward as American minis- 
ter mark the close of a period in the relations of the United 
States with China, a brief summary is in order. 

The war, although it had produced no effect whatever 
on the great mass of the Chinese Empire, had shattered the 
old system by which the Peking Government had been able 
to transact the affairs of its international relations through 
the southern port of Canton. While in retirement at Jehol 
the Emperor Hienfeng died (August 22, 1861). By means 
of a silent revolution within the court, Prince Kung, brother 
of Hienfeng, and uncle of the boy emperor, Tungshih, be- 
came president of a newly created Board of Foreign Affairs. 
Prince Kung had already come into contact with the 
foreigners in the negotiations for the ratification of the 
treaties in 1860 and, while by no means a liberal or enlight- 
ened statesman, he recognized the necessity of conciliating 
the determined foreigners. Associated with the prince were 
Kweiliang, one of the commissioners who had met the 
foreigners at Tientsin in 1858, and Wensiang, the ablest 
modern Chinese statesman until the rise of Li Hung Chang. 
At the same time the two dowager empresses assumed the 
regency and the empress mother Yehonala, sometimes called 
the Empress of the Western Palace to distinguish her from 
the less able and aggressive Empress Consort who lived in 
the Eastern Palace, entered upon her remarkable regime in 
Chinese affairs. 

For the United States also the year 1861 marks many 
important changes. Among the American merchants the 
pre-treaty traditions of old Canton had entirely disappeared. 
A new kind of international trade competition had arisen 
in which the merchants of other nations could bring to their 
help a political and military support such as the American 
Government was quite unwilling to render to its nationals. 



WARD AND TATTNALL— RATIFICATIONS 345 

The international situation, hitherto relatively simple, with 
France appearing as the obliging and retiring ally of Great 
Britain, was changing. Great Britain and France were 
falling apart as a result of Palmerston policies in Europe. 
Other European nations were stirring. Russia had at length 
come into actual contact with the European powers in the 
Far East. Within the next ten years six other nations, 
Germany, Portugal, Denmark, Spain, Holland and Italy, 
were to conclude treaties with China. In place of the old 
conciliatory policies of Canton had come an intense inter- 
national rivalry and trade conflict which the American Gov- 
ernment, much against its will, had been forced to consider. 
The United States was not free to select and follow a policy 
in accord with its earlier traditions. It must enter inter- 
national politics in China or forfeit its place in the trade. 
In the treaty of 1858 the United States had compromised its 
traditional principles for the sake of holding its place in the 
international competition. The treaty was not such as Mr. 
Reed would have liked to make. Mr. Ward in China was 
like a lost soul not knowing to what world he belonged, and 
probably much more interested in the developments of the 
Secession than in the task in hand. 

That American policy in China from 1854 to 1860 did 
not correctly express the American people becomes very 
evident when we compare it with the policy of the United 
States in Japan where the Americans, still following the 
cooperative policy, had none the less the acknowledged 
leadership. 

BIBLIOGKAPHICAL NOTES 

1. The Ward Correspondence is printed, in part, in S. Ex. Doc. 

No. 30 :36-l, in the same volume with the Reed Correspondence. 

2. Poster: "American Diplomacy in the Orient," p. 245. 

3. Ward Corres., p. 575. 

4. Ihid., pp. 577-9. 

5. Ihid., pp. ,581-5. 
^^. Ihid., p. 611. 

7. Ward Corres., p. 593. 

8. Williams' Journal, p. 143 

9. Ward Corres., p. 586. 



346 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

10. Williams' Journal, pp. 120 ff. 

11. Private papers of Rear Admiral Stephen Decatur Trenchard, 

U. S. Navy, ed. by Edgar Stanton Maclay : U. 8. Naval Insti- 
tute Proceedings, Vol. 40, pp. 1085 ff. 

12. William W. Rockhill: "Diplomatic Missions to the Court of 

China": Amer. Hist. Beview, July, 1897, p. 638. 

13. Williams' Journal, pp. 169 ff. 

14. Foster : "American Diplomacy in the Orient," p. 250. 

15. Williams' Journal, p. 184. 

16. Ward Corres., p. 598. 

17. lUd., p. 618. 

18. Richardson's Messages, Vol. 5, p. 643 (Annual Message, Dec. 3, 

1860). 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE POLICY or TOWNSEND HAKRIS IN JAPAN 

Before considering the policy of Townsend Harris in 
Japan which was being written into a treaty engagement at 
the very time Reed was proceeding to the Pei-ho in the 
company of the fleets of France and England, and was being 
applied at the time Ward and Tattnall were participating 
in the attack at Taku in 1859, it will be well to review some 
of the fundamental differences between China and Japan as 
the two nations faced the future in 1858. 

The Chinese Empire, notwithstanding the despotism of 
the Manchus, a state religion and a common classical litera- 
ture was conspicuously lacking in unity. It was sprawled 
over half a continent, divided by great mountain ranges and 
deserts, without the means of rapid communication, speak- 
ing no common language, and permitting such large degree 
of provincial and local autonomy as greatly weakened the 
central authority. Japan, on the other hand, was small and 
compact, had relatively easy communications, a common 
spoken as well as written language, and while there was also 
a decentralized government as in China, yet the form of 
decentralization was feudalistic and gave to the government 
of the Shogun a representative character which was wholly 
lacking in China. The Shogun was compelled to take coun- 
sel with the feudal nobles who constituted a territorial 
representation in the government. The Chinese adminis- 
tration was in the hands of a mandarinate recruited by an 
impractical system of civil service : the only form of protest 
available for the people was either riot or rebellion. The 
decision of the Shogun rested more nearly than that of the 
Chinese Emperor on the will of the people. Japan, a com- 
pact Empire, possessed a very lively patriotism such as was 

347 



348 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

impossible in decentralized China ruled by an alien dynasty. 
The Chinese system of government had repressed the devel- 
opment of political leadership, while the Japanese system 
had the effect of cultivating and encouraging it. In 1858 
China was without competent leaders, while Japan had 
many of exceptional ability. To all these advantages in 
favor of Japan must be added the presence of a military 
spirit and tradition such as the needs of a small and secluded 
and feudalistic nation demanded, and such as China had not 
required and had indeed discouraged. Japan, less exposed 
because of her isolation and relative poverty, was vastly 
better prepared than China in 1858 to meet the onrush of 
Western aggression. 

Appointment of Townsend Harris — Instructions and 
Treaty with Siam 

Townsend Harris ^ had been a merchant in New York 
City, distinguished for his public spirit and service. He had 
been president of the Board of Education and was "a sound, 
reliable and influential Democrat." Giving up his business 
in New York he sailed for San Francisco in May, 1849, in a 
vessel of which he was part owner, and later embarked upon 
a leisurely trading enterprise in the Pacific and Indian 
oceans. On Christmas, 1849, he was *'at sea in the North 
Pacific Ocean"; 1850, at Manila; 1851, at Penang; 1852, at 
Singapore; 1853, at Hongkong; 1854, at Calcutta. His 
enterprises, while at first successful, ended in failure, and in 
1853, describing himself as a resident of Hongkong, he 
applied for the position of American consul at either Hong- 
kong or Canton;- Notwithstanding the efforts of influential 
friends in the United States he was assigned to the consu- 
late at Ningpo (August 2, 1854) an unimportant and trivial 
post with a remuneration of $1000 for judicial services and 
such fees as the slight American trade at that port afforded. 
Harris, whose face was already turned towards home, ap- 
pointed a missionary. Dr. D. C. Macgowan, as acting consul, 
and set out for New York.^ Immediately upon his arrival 



THE POLICY OF TOWNSEND HARRIS IN JAPAN 349 

he secured the interest of his New York friends on behalf of 
a possible appointment to the newly created post of consul- 
general in Japan. To President Pierce he wrote (August 4, 
1855) : "I have a perfect knowledge of the social banish- 
ment I must endure while in Japan, and the mental isola- 
tion in which I must live, and am prepared to meet it." 
He stated that even though he were offered the choice 
between the posts of commissioner to China and consul- 
general to Japan, he would "instantly take the latter." 
His efforts were successful, and within two weeks after his 
arrival in New York, he had received his appointment which 
was later confirmed by the Senate. 

Harris was a man of urbanity, character and ability. 
While living at Hongkong he appears to have won the confi- 
dence and friendship of Sir John Bowring, and to have 
attracted the attention of Commodore Perry. He was also 
a friend of William E. Seward, then senator from New 
York.* As to convictions in Far Eastern policy Harris ap- 
pears to have occupied a middle position between Perry and 
Parker, on the one side, and Cushing and the early Canton 
traders on the other. He thought, for example, the United 
States ought to acquire Formosa, but he would have had the 
acquisition made by purchase, and so recommended in a 
letter to Marcy.^ 

To the duties of the American representative in Japan 
were added those of special agent to secure a new treaty 
with Siam which was to be negotiated while en route to 
Shimoda. The motives of President Pierce in making the 
appointment were expressed by Marcy (September 12, 
1855) as follows: "The President entertained the hope that 
by your knowledge of Eastern character and your general 
intelligence and experience in business you would make such 
an impression upon the Japanese as would in time induce 
them to enter into a commercial treaty with us." "^ Marcy 
did not outline specifically the sort of treaty which was 
desired but referred him to a draft of the proposed treaty 
with Siam, the stipulations of which would be satisfactory 
for a treaty with Japan — "at least for a beginning." 



350 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

In addition to the written instructions Marcy appears to 
have given some verbal ones, including the necessity for 
securing extraterritoriality which had not been included in 
either the Roberts treaty with Siam or the Perry treaty with 
Japan. Marcy was somewhat apologetic about this stipula- 
tion which, he said, was necessary because the Senate would 
not ratify a treaty in which it was lacking.* 

The Roberts treaty with Siam, while stipulating the 
omission of all tariff duties, had been of little value to 
American trade because the tonnage dues — the only charge 
for foreign trade, and exactly similar to those which had 
been included in the preceding British treaty — were so 
excessive as to exclude practically all foreign trade. A few 
years after the signing of the Roberts treaty a system of 
monopolies had been created in Siam which had still further 
retarded the trade. In 1849 Joseph Balestier,^ consul at 
Singapore, had been appointed a special envoy to negotiate 
treaties with Siam, Cochin China, Borneo, Subi, Bally and 
Lambok Islands, as well as with the pepper coast of Suma- 
tra. He was instructed to make a new treaty with Siam, 
correcting the tonnage dues and securing the right to ap- 
point a consul at Bankok. Balestier's negotiations had 
come to nothing because of his ill temper. The Siamese 
had sent a message to the American Government through 
the missionaries and American naval officers which, after 
remarking that Balestier was a "person of much excitabil- 
ity" said: 

"Should the high ministers of the United States of America 
appoint an officer hereafter to come here for friendly negotiations it 
is requested that they may appoint an efficient, prudent and well dis- 
posed person, not inclined to anger, but like Mr. Roberts." 

American interests in Siam in 1855 were largely mission- 
ary, there having been American Protestant missionaries 

*In a letter many years later Harris stated : "The provision of the treaty 
giving the right of extraterritoriality to all Americans in Japan was against 
my conscience. In a conversation with Governor Marcy, the Secretary of State 
in 1855, he strongly condemned it as an unjust interference with the municipal 
law of a country which no western nation would tolerate for a moment ; but 
he said that it would be impossible to have a treaty with an Oriental nation 
unless it contained that provision. The examples of our treaties with Turkey, 
Persia, and the Barbary States gave a precedent that the Senate would not 
overlook." ' 



THE POLICY OF TOWNSEND HARRIS IN JAPAN 351 

there for more than twenty years. Harris was therefore 
instructed to secure for them the treaty right to pursue their 
work unmolested, but he was cautioned that in Japan the 
prejudice against missionaries was so great that he would 
probably not be able to secure missionary liberty. 

The immediate occasion of this new effort to make a 
treaty with Siam was the recent project of Great Britain for 
a new treaty. Harris was cautioned that he might expect 
to find the Siamese somewhat alarmed at the prospect of 
European aggression and he was therefore instructed to 
make clear the distinctions between the traditional foreign 
policies of the United States and Great Britain. Marcy 
wrote: ^ 

"It is obvious . . . that you will be at no loss for argument to 
show the difference between the foreign policies especially of this 
country and Great Britain. While the latter is herself an Eastern 
Power and as such by the late Burmese war has since become a near 
neighbor to Siam, we covet no dominions in that quarter. It is 
undoubtedly in the interest of Siam to be liberal in her commercial 
policy towards the United States." 

Harris proceeded to England and thence by leisurely 
stages to India and Ceylon and was picked up by the U. S. 
frigate San Jacinto at Penang.^" The expedition arrived at 
the anchorage of the Menam River April 16, 1856. At Ban- 
kok Mr. Harry Parkes was just concluding the ratifications 
of the British treaty which had been negotiated by Sir John 
Bowring, and Harris experienced no difficulty in effecting a 
similar compact in which extraterritoriality was granted, 
the rate of import tariff fixed at 3 per cent, and export 
duties determined according to a schedule attached to the 
treaty. Revision could be effected at the end of ten years at 
the desire of either party. Opium was to be admitted free 
of all duty, but could be sold only to the "opium farmer'^ 
or his agents. The Siamese would have been very willing to 
go very much farther in their treaty with the United States 
had Harris not discouraged them. Indeed they wished an 
alliance, or protectorate. Harris reported: ^^ 

"In my confidential interviews with the ministers, they expressed 
both fear and hatred of England. They read in the history of Burmah 



352 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

the fate that probably awaits them, and which they consider only a 
question of time. 

"They were most anxious to be taken under the protection of the 
United States. They plainly told me that if I would make a treaty 
of alliance they would give us all we could ask, even to a monopoly 
of the trade." 

Upon leaving Siam Harris appointed as consul Rev. 
Stephen Mattoon, a missionary who had been there ten 
years. The treaty was at first an impetus to trade. Russell 
and Company established a branch at Bankok, and other 
American traders appeared, but the large extension of the 
open ports in China after the treaty of 1858 appears to have 
curtailed the development of the trade with Bankok. Rus- 
sell and Company soon withdrew its representative. There 
was delay in securing a suitable consul for the post; Con- 
gress made no provision for a salary, and the fees were 
hardly sufficient to cover the necessary boat hire. Ameri- 
can relations with Siam did not become important. How- 
ever the negotiations had given Harris some practice in 
treaty-making and many of the provisions of the treaty 
between England and Siam appeared again in the first com- 
nlercial treaty between the United States and Japan two 
years later. 

Arrival of Harris in Japan — Convention of 1857 

The San Jacinto, after many prolonged delays due to 
defective machinery, arrived at Shimoda with Townsend 
Harris August 21, 1856. The consul general was not wel- 
come. The Japanese officials protested that the Perry treaty 
did not require them to receive him; they asked him to 
leave ; they asked him to write to his government requesting 
his recall, and they begged Commodore Armstrong to take 
him away ; all in vain. After setting up a flagstaff in front 
of the temple which the Japanese at length placed at his 
disposal for a residence, and after landing the envoy with a 
salute of thirteen guns, yards manned, the San Jacinto 
sailed away and left him — to be unvisited by any naval 
vessel for fourteen months. Harris was without communi- 



ll 



THE POLICY OF TOWNSEND HARRIS IN JAPAN 353 

cations from the Department of State for eighteen months. 
No representative of the American Government was ever 
left more to his own devices. 

The treaty situation at that time was as follows: ^^ 
Admiral Sir James Sterling had concluded a convention 
similar to Perry's in October, 1854. It contained a most- 
favored-nation clause and also a stipulation for elementary 
extraterritoriality. This treaty was as little satisfactory to 
Great Britain as the Perry treaty was to Americans, and at 
Hongkong Sir John Bowring had told Harris that he had 
received a commission to proceed to Japan with a large 
naval force to demand and secure the complete opening of 
the empire to foreign trade. Bowring had given Harris per- 
mission to use this information freely in his own peaceful 
negotiations. However, the disturbances in China, the 
Indian Mutiny, and the then unformed state of British 
policy in China were to delay the expedition contemplated 
for Bowring for nearly two years. 

Twenty months after the conclusion of the Perry treaty 
the Dutch representative, Donker Curtius, was able to 
effect a "preliminary Convention of Commerce," thus carry- 
ing out a project which the Netherlands had tried to accom- 
plish in 1844. Sir John Bowring had given to Harris a copy 
of this convention. It marked several notable advances in 
concessions for foreigners. In addition to extraterritoriality, 
and greatly enlarged personal freedom, the island of 
Deshima at Nagasaki, which had served the Dutch traders 
at once as a prison and trading post for two centuries, was 
to be sold outright to the Netherlands factory, thus estab- 
lishing the precedent for the sale of land to foreigners for 
residence and trade. The convention also mentioned the 
fact that the Dutch were permitted to reside at Nagasaki. 

The Netherlands envoy secured a more elaborate com- 
mercial treaty which was signed January 30, 1856, eight 
months before the arrival of Harris. This treaty permitted 
the Dutch to bring their wives and children to the open 
ports, and there was a stipulation that they should be 
allowed ''to practice their own or the Christian religion 



354 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

within their buildings." Import duties were fixed at 35 per 
cent, but the export duties were left undetermined. These 
agreements, consisting of a treaty, additional articles and a 
"supplement to additional articles," were not ratified when 
Harris arrived. 

The Russians also had been active. Count Putiatin, 
who had first appeared at Nagasaki shortly after the con- 
clusion of Perry's first visit to the Bay of Yedo, and who had 
vainly sought the cooperation of Perry in a joint expedition 
for 1854,^^ concluded a treaty of "commerce, navigation and 
delimitation" at Shimoda, in January, 1855. Aside from 
opening three ports — Nagasaki, Shimoda and Hakodate — 
stipulation for the residence of consuls at the two latter 
places, and bilateral extraterritoriality, the convention fixed 
the boundaries of the two nations, assigning the island of 
Urup to Russia, Iturup and the Kuriles to Japan, and 
leaving the two empires in joint occupation of Sakhalin. 
Russia then proceeded to further explorations of Sakhalin 
and discovered coal mines which led to Russian attempts to 
abrogate the joint possession of the island.^'* However, the 
ratifications of the Putiatin treaty were exchanged at 
Shimoda shortly after the arrival of Harris. Japan was 
probably even more alarmed at the advances of Russia than 
she was at the Anglo-French war with China. 

Townsend Harris, left alone at Shimoda except for the 
companionship of his interpreter, C. J. Heusken, a natural- 
ized Hollander who had been selected because Dutch was 
the language of diplomacy in Japan, proceeded slowly. 
Shimoda was wholly unsuited to either trade or diplomacy. 
It was the seat of a large stone quarry, but was without pro- 
duce suitable for export, and was shut off from the surround- 
ing country by almost impassable hills. The harbor was 
small and had been rendered nearly useless by a tidal wave 
which the year before had removed nearly all the "holding 
ground" from the bottom of the bay, and had wrecked com- 
pletely the Russian corvette Diana. The spot had obviously 
been selected by the Japanese because of its inaccessibility. 
It was certainly not a favorable point from which to nego- 



THE POLICY OF TOWNSEND HARRIS IN JAPAN 355 

tiate a new treaty with Yedo. Harris' first impression of 
the Japanese officials was unpleasant. While he became 
convinced that the common people were ready to welcome 
the foreigner, he regarded the officials as "the greatest liars 
on earth" and told them as much. And yet he set out to 
win their confidence and good will and so far succeeded as 
to be able to sign a convention June 17, 1857, in which the 
Japanese conceded directly by treaty what had by inference 
from the most-favored-nation clause of the Perry treaty 
accrued to the Americans in the British, Russian and Dutch 
conventions. These concessions were: the opening of 
Nagasaki as a port of call; the right to have a vice consul 
at Hakodate; extraterritoriality and the right of residence 
at Shimoda and Hakodate ; the privilege of paying for ship's 
supplies in "goods" in case money were not available; and 
settlement of a new basis for exchange which fixed the 
value of the Japanese ichibu* at 34i/^ cents, whereas under 
the Perry convention it had been valued at a dollar in 
silver. The convention also abrogated the agreement of 
the Perry treaty which had placed all trade under the im- 
mediate supervision of the government, and greatly en- 
larged the personal freedom of Harris by admitting that 
he had the right in his official capacity to travel beyond 
the limits of seven n which had been fixed in the Perry 
treaty. While the new convention was not as explicit as the 
Dutch treaty in matters of commercial privilege and resi- 
dence, it contained greater concessions than had been ex- 
pected by the American Government in 1855 when Secre- 
tary Marcy had issued his instructions to Harris. f 

Harris at Yedo 

The work of Townsend Harris at Shimoda deserves a 
more honored place in American history than it has re- 
ceived. His health failed as his supplies became exhausted, 

* Ichibu=one hu; a 6m being a certain weight of silver or gold, not a coin. 

tThe treaty was duly ratified June 15, 1858, by advice of the Senate. It 
has been confused by at least one British historian with the amplified treaty of 
commerce of 1858." 



356 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

and his government neglected him. At length he was re- 
duced to little more than a Japanese diet which nearly cost 
him his life. He was without medical attention when it 
was urgently needed, and he was "as one may say in a 
prison — a large one it is true — but still a prison." Not- 
withstanding the handicaps laid upon him and the obvious 
intentions of the authorities to thwart his purpose, we see 
him entering the capital city of Yedo (November 30, 1857) 
five and one-half months after signing the convention, with 
the promise that he should be permitted to deliver in per- 
son the letter from President Pierce to the Shogun. It was 
an extraordinary achievement in which he had surrendered 
no particle of the official dignity of his position and had 
won his way by argument and by absolute candor. The 
contrast between Commissioner Ward's entry into Peking 
and Consul-General Harris' entry into Yedo is striking. The 
honor accorded to Harris was, however, a mark of the 
greater political astuteness of the Japanese Government as 
well as of the finer diplomatic skill of the New York mer- 
chant. Yedo had read correctly the designs of Russia, while 
Peking, wholly deceived, had taken the Russian envoy to 
her bosom; the mere intimation of British intentions in 
Japan had been alarming, while the destruction of the Taku 
forts in 1858 by the allied British and French forces had 
been dismissed by the Manchu Government with fatuous 
indifference. 

Harris was not content at Yedo with the delivery of the 
President's letter ; he had come to make a commercial treaty 
with the Shogun's government, and before the end of Feb- 
ruary, 1858, he had succeeded in securing the approval of 
the Yedo officials to a satisfactory draft. 

The arguments which Harris used are a clear revelation 
of his policy.^" Intercourse with the United States, he said, 
should consist of free commerce and diplomatic representa- 
tion. By means of steam navigation California was only 
eighteen days removed from Japan, and by means of the 
transcontinental telegraph another hour would carry a mes- 
sage to Washington. "To acquire possessions in Asia/' 



I 



THE POLICY OF TOWNSEND HARRIS IN JAPAN 357 

stated Harris, remembering the failure of the American 
Government to act on the suggestions to acquire Formosa, 
and the denial of admission of the Sandwich Islands to the 
United States in 1854, "is prohibited by the government." 
Not only did the United States have no territorial ambi- 
tions, but it was even contrary to American policy to join 
alliances with other Western powers which had designs in 
Asia. He mentioned the refusal of Presidents Pierce and 
Buchanan to enter into an alliance with Great Britain and 
France in the existing war in China. He warned Japan that 
Great Britain had designs on Formosa, and that France 
wanted Korea, and expressed the opinion that if China did 
not now surrender to their allied arms, the two Western 
nations would probably divide China between them.* 

"Misfortunes are now threatening Japan," stated Harris in effect, 
"in consequence of the state of things in England and the European 
states. England is not satisfied with the treaty made with Japan 
by Admiral Sir James Sterling. The English Government hopes to 
hold the same kind of intercourse with Japan as she holds with other 
nations, and is ready to make war on Japan, as I will now show. 
England greatly fears Russia will disturb her East Indian possessions. 
Quite lately England and France united to fight against Russia be- 
cause the latter was disposed to annex other countries. England does 
not want Russia to hold Sakhalin and the Amur. England fears that 
Russia will take possession of Manchuria and China. She may then 
attack the possessions of England in the East Indies, and then war 
will break out again between England and Russia. Should Russia do 
as above indicated, it will become very difficult for England to defend 
herself, and in order to be in a position to defend herself successfully 
she desires to take possession of Sakhalin, Yezo and Hakodate. 
Should England take possession of these places, she will send a large 
fleet to each place and cut off communications between Petropauloski, 
the port of Kamtchatka and Sakhalin. England would rather have 
possession of Yezo than Manchuria." f 

Harris explained to the Japanese that there would be a 
"great difference between a treaty made with a single in- 

*In making these assertions Harris was doubtless correctly reflecting cur- 
rent opinion among the foreigners in China at the time he passed through 
Hongkong on his way from Banl^ok to Shimoda. The dispatches of Commodore 
Perry and the proposals of Dr. Parker for a joint naval demonstration against 
China for the acquisition of Formosa, reflected a similar opinion. 

t This is a Japanese version of Harris's argument, and some allowances may 
be made for misunderstandings in the interpretation which was from English 
into Dutch and thence into Japanese. That Harris spoke with so much blunt- 
ness and so little qualification of statement seems unlikely, but that the Japa- 
nese had caught the main points of his argument seems very probable. Per- 
haps Harris spoke with the more confidence because of the very free conversa- 
tions which he had had with Sir John Bowring at Hongkong in 1856. 



358 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

dividual unattended, and one made with an envoy who 
would bring fifty men-of-war to these shores." He warned 
them against the evils of the opium trade, and recounted 
what the Siamese had told him of their fears of Great 
Britain. He explained to them the present condition of 
India. He even offered the services of American military 
and naval officers and shipyards, to help Japan strengthen 
her defenses, and intimated that the United States might 
be willing to accept a position as mediator in any conflicts 
which Japan might have with Western powers. In con- 
clusion Harris argued that Japan's best safeguard against 
such threatened aggressions was to abandon entirely the 
policy of seclusion and admit all nations freely to her trade, 
thus making the rivalries of the Western world her ally in 
an effort to preserve her integrity. 

Harris's representations, viewed as an expression of Far 
Eastern policy, were in entire accord with what was already 
traditional American policy in China. The United States 
desired to see the Asiatic states sustained and made strong 
to withstand by their own might the encroachments of the 
European powers. Americans, argued the American repre- 
sentatives in China as well as in Japan, were likely to fare 
better in Asia with the sovereignty and integrity of the 
Asiatic states preserved, than with the territories divided 
up among European governments. In short, the United 
States desired for its citizens an open door to trade, and the 
surest way to open this door and to keep it open, was on the 
one hand to persuade the sovereign states of Asia to open 
their doors, and then to strengthen these states so that they 
themselves would be able to keep them open. That Harris 
was correctly representing American policy in Yedo in 1858 
there can be no doubt, and yet so gradual had been the ac- 
cumulation of the precedents which had established this 
policy, and so meagre had been the official utterances of 
the American Government on the subject, that one will 
search in vain in the official records for any such declara- 
tions as we have summarized above. American policy was 
not a pronouncement ; it was a body of precedent to which 



THE POLICY OF TOWNSEND HARRIS IN JAPAN 359 

Harris himself was in his turn making important contri- 
butions in precision of statement. 



Treaty and Tariff of 1858 

Harris became a teacher of pohtical economy. He pro- 
ceeded to instruct the Japanese in the theories of economics 
— theories which he had learned in America rather than in 
England where the doctrine of Free Trade was more firmly 
established. He showed them how the revenues of the gov- 
ernment might be met in part or even wholly by tariffs on 
foreign trade. He warned them against the evils of export 
duties, and held up the advantages of a relatively high 
tariff — and yet not too high. (The Dutch had already fixed 
the import duties at 35 per cent.) ^^ When the Japanese at 
length agreed to make such a commercial treaty as he pro- 
posed, they entrusted to him the duty of devising the tariff, 
while expressing their preference for a flat 121/2 per cent 
rate on both exports and imports. Even 121/2 per cent 
seemed to Harris far too high for ship's supplies which 
the whaling vessels would require and which constituted 
at that time the only American trade in view. Harris at 
length induced the Japanese to agree to a 5 per cent duty 
on these supplies; 5 per cent on all exports; 35 per cent 
on imported alcoholic drinks, which he abhorred and which 
were not an article of American export; and 20 per cent 
on all other imports. This schedule was a comfortable one 
for Americans, reducing the import duties on the only ar- 
ticles which seriously interested American traders to the 
extent of about 85 per cent. "I have drawn regulations," 
reported Harris to Cass (August 7, 1858),^^ "with a view 
to the protection of the revenue, and the tariff is arranged 
with a view first to secure an income to the Japanese Gov- 
ernment, and second to enable our whaling ships in the 
North Pacific Ocean to obtain their supplies on reasonable 
terms." It was an ingenious device: while American trade 
was taxed at 5 per cent it left British manufactures at 20 
per cent and French wines at 35 per cent to provide the bulk 



360 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

of the revenue for the Japanese Government. Needless to 
say the arrangement was quite unsatisfactory to Great Brit- 
ain and France. Lord Elgin ^^^ a few months later secured 
a reduction of the tariff to 5 per cent for the bulk of Brit- 
ish produce, and not long afterwards there were still further 
reductions. Harris did not approve of this whittling down 
of the Japanese revenues, and did not appear to see that the 
English and French were merely applying his own 
principle.-*' 

The treaty of 1858 between the United States and 
Japan became the basis of Japan's foreign relations until 
near the close of the century, just as Cushing's treaty with 
China had been the basis of China's relations with the treaty 
powers until it was replaced with Lord Elgin's treaty in 
1858. The Harris treaty, while including all the advanta- 
geous terms of the convention of the preceding year, went 
very much farther in the direction for free diplomatic and 
commercial intercourse. It consisted of thirty-four articles 
and seven trade regulations, which included the tariff sched- 
ule. Some of the details need not be noted, but many of 
the stipulations are important. 

A diplomatic agent was to be permitted to reside in Yedo, 
and consular agents were to reside in all the open ports. 
The diplomatic representatives and the consul general were 
to have the right to "travel freely" in any part of the Em- 
pire of Japan. American citizens were to reside perma- 
nently in the open ports and could "lease ground and pur- 
chase buildings thereon." Trade was to be free "without 
the intervention of any Japanese officers." 

It was stipulated that the President of the United 
States, "at the request of the Japanese Government will 
act as a friendly mediator in such matters of difference as 
may arise between the Government of Japan and any Euro- 
pean power." "There is nothing in this article," wrote 
Harris in his journal,-^ "that requires a treaty stipulation, 
but I inserted it to produce an impression on the govern- 
ment and people and it had that effect." Another article 
of similar character permitted the Japanese to "purchase 



I 



THE POLICY OF TOWNSEND HARRIS IN JAPAN 361 

or construct in the United States ships of war, steamers, 
merchant ships, whale ships, cannon, munitions of war, 
arms of all kinds," and to engage ''scientific, naval and mili- 
tary men, artisans of all kinds, and mariners to enter its 
service." This article was expected to win the approval 
of the daimyos whose opposition to a treaty was already 
making itself felt at Yedo. 

In drafting the treaty Harris went as far in the direc- 
tion of a political alliance with Japan as he dared. While 
the Japanese were encouraged to look to the United States 
for military and naval instructors and supplies, it was agreed 
that Japan would open the three ports of Yokohoma, Naga- 
saki and Hakodate as depots of supplies for American naval 
vessels. Harris felt that this was a great advantage secured 
to his government because it would make possible the re- 
moval of the American naval depot at Hongkong. A war 
between Great Britain and the United States in the Far 
East seemed to him, as it had to Perry, a possibility. What 
Perry had sought to accomplish by the appropriation of 
naval bases at the Bonin and Lew Chew Islands, Harris 
felt that he had effected by pacific negotiations with the 
Shogun's ministers. 

Americans in Japan were not only to be permitted the 
free exercise of their rehgion within their own dwellings, 
but were to have the right to erect suitable places of wor- 
ship. Apparently as a concession to Japanese fear of mis- 
sionaries this article also stipulated that neither Americans 
nor Japanese were to "do anything that may be calculated 
to excite religious animosity." The next year Harris, who 
had become in his lonely exile a very devout man and a 
great believer in Christian missions, made a strong effort to 
secure a concession stipulating "full toleration of religion 
among the Japanese themselves" but failed. However, 
wrote Harris, "the first blow has been struck." Even then 
Verbeck was on his way to Japan. 

Harris at first stoutly contended for the opening of eight 
ports, ^- for the right of residence in Kioto which as the 
residence of the Mikado was considered as little less than 



362 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

holy ground, and for the right of unrestricted travel for all 
Americans of good character after a residence of one year 
in the open ports. He was led to abandon the second and 
third of these contentions when it was represented to him 
that they might lead to such opposition from the daimyos as 
would cost him the entire treaty, and he consented to a 
reduction of the total number of ports to six, to which was 
added the right of residence for all Americans in Yedo 
after January 1, 1862. Kanagawa, for which Yokohama 
was later actually substituted, and Nagasaki were to be 
opened July 4, 1859; Niigata, or some more suitable port 
on the northern coast of Hondo, January 1, 1860; and 
Hiogo, near Osaka, January 1, 1863. 

The tariff was notable, aside from the points already 
mentioned, in two respects : opium was prohibited as in the 
Russian and Dutch treaties; and the tariff was a "con- 
ventional" one, i.e., a part of the treaty in such a way that 
its revision became a revision of the treaty itself. The 
treaty, like the British and American treaties with Siam, 
was subject not to termination at a definite date, but only 
to "revision" at the end of ten years "upon the desire of 
either" party, but the tariff was to be subject to revision, 
if the Japanese desired, five years after the opening of 
Kanagawa, i.e., July 4, 1864. It was farthest from Harris's 
intention to fasten upon Japan a 5 per cent tariff which 
could not be altered except with the consent of the Euro- 
pean powers, but such was the effect of his treaty, the text 
of which was accepted by Lord Elgin and later envoys as 
the basis of the subsequent treaties with other powers. 

As the treaty came from the hands of Harris in the 
spring of 1858 it was not only more liberal in its provisions 
than the Gushing treaty with China, but even more liberal 
than the treaties of Tientsin which had followed the occu- 
pation of Canton and the destruction of the Taku forts. 
The treaty was also both in intent and in the textual provi- 
sions, more just to Japan than the corresponding treaties 
were to China and also more expedient. Like the Perry 
treaty it was not a source of rancor among the Japanese. 



THE POLICY OF TOWNSEND HARRIS IN JAPAN 363 

As a means of further cementing the good relations between 
the two nations, it contained the provision, inserted by the 
Japanese, that the ratifications were to be exchanged in 
Washington. 

Opposition to the treaty developed so fast during the 
negotiations, which were concluded about the end of Feb- 
ruary, that Harris was induced to consent to a delay before 
the final signatures were affixed in order that the Yedo ofii- 
cials might have time to secure the assent of the Mikado. 
While they had "roared with laughter" -^ a few weeks be- 
fore when Harris had alluded to the supposed Japanese 
veneration for the Mikado, they now expressed the opinion 
that the Mikado's assent would add weight to the engage- 
ment and should be secured if possible. They promised 
Harris that the signatures would be affixed within sixty 
days, and told him that if the Mikado refused to confirm 
the agreement, they were prepared to disregard the Im- 
perial wishes. On March 10 Harris returned to Shimoda on 
a Japanese Government steamer, purchased in Holland. 
He became very ill at Shimoda — so ill that his life was 
despaired of and he was attended most solicitously by the 
Shogun's physicians. 

The Harris treaty precipitated a crisis in Japanese do- 
mestic politics. ^^ The negotiation .of the documents was 
seized upon by those daimyos who opposed the Shogun and 
had in mind his overthrow. The consideration of the treaty 
was thus not permitted to proceed on its merits alone. The 
Imperial Court, at first almost persuaded to give approval, 
was then overshadowed by the anti-Tokugawa party and 
the Mikado's assent was withheld. Most of the daimyos of 
the Empire had also opposed the proposed abrogation of 
the policy of seclusion. 

Harris returned to Yedo in April, only to receive assur- 
ances that the treaty would be signed, but that the date of 
signing would be further postponed. Meanwhile the Dutch 
authorities, who had received a copy of the treaty, stood 
ready to sign one in which would be omitted the clauses 
and articles which were most objectionable to the Japanese. 



364 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

To thwart the Dutch and to save his own treaty, Harris 
secured a written agreement that the Japanese would not 
sign any other treaty until thirty days after his was signed. 
Then he returned again to Shimoda. 

The treaty question was abruptly taken out of domestic 
politics by the news of the conclusion of the treaties of 
Tientsin and the reported intention of Lord Elgin to proceed 
to Yedo immediately. On June 23 and 24, 1858, the 
U. S. S. Mississippi and Powhatan, respectively, arrived at 
Shimoda with the news. Harris seized the opportunity, re- 
turned to the Bay of Yedo with the American naval vessels, 
and sent a hurried call to Yedo for a conference. The Jap- 
anese were in consternation. Arriving at the conclusion 
which Harris had always urged, that it was safer to let the 
American treaty stand as a model for other treaties than to 
longer delay, and fortified by a written statement from 
Harris that he was willing to act as mediator with Great 
Britain and France, the compact was signed on board the 
Powhatan July 29, 1858. 

The treaty did not have the approval of the Mikado, 
and by signing it the Shogun party had laid itself open to 
the most serious criticisms before the very princes and 
daimyos who were already seeking means whereby the 
Tokugawa regime in Japanese affairs might be eliminated. 
Harris was quite unaware of the extent of the domestic 
disturbance throughout the Empire to which he had been 
contributing. 

Three other treaties followed in quick succession: with 
the Netherlands, August 18; with Russia, August 19; with 
Great Britain, August 26 ; and with France, October 7. 

While by no means of equal importance with the diplo- 
macy of Benjamin Franklin, there were qualities in the work 
of Townsend Harris at Yedo which remind one of Frankhn 
in London and Paris. Longford, British historian, describes 
his service as ''not exceeded by any in the entire history of 
the international relations of the world." ^^ The further 
diplomatic service of Harris in Yedo will be treated in a 
later chapter. 



THE POLICY OF TOWNSEND HARRIS IN JAPAN 365 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

1. The primary sources for the life and diplomatic service of Town- 

send Harris are : Japan Despatches, Vols. 1 and 2 (Dept. of 
State) ; Griffis : "Townsend Harris", which is based on the jour- 
nals of Harris and includes very generous extracts of them; 
a typewritten copy of a part of the Harris journal (Library of 
Congress) ; and the records of the Bureau of Appointments, 
Dept. of State. Very few of the Harris dispatches to the Dept. 
of State were ever published, but the extracts from Harris's 
journal, printed in Griffis's book, are in many cases practically 
identical with the dispatches. 

2. Records of the Bureau of Appointment, Dept. of State. Grif- 

fis makes an incorrect guess as to the way in which the Harris 
appointment came about. 

3. Ningpo Letters, Vol. 1, June 22, 1855, Macgowan to Marcy 

(Dept. of State). 

4. Japan Instructions, Vol. 1 (Dept. of State). 

5. Dip. Corres., 1862, p. 822. 

6. Griffis: "Harris," pp. 15, 16. 

7. E. H. House: "The Martyrdom of an Empire," Atlantic Monthly, 

Vol. XLVII, p. 622. 

8. Balestier Corres., S. Ex. Doc. 38 :32-l. 

9. Japan Instructions, Vol. 1, Sept. 12, 1855. 

10. W. M. Wood, U. S. Surgeon on the San Jacinto, wrote a book — 

"Fankwei"; or, "The San Jacinto in the Seas of India, China 
and Japan," in which eight chapters are devoted to the Harris 
Mission to Bankok. Japan Dispatches, Vol. 1, Nos. 5-8, con- 
tain Harris's own reports of the negotiations. 

11. Japan Dispatches, Vol. 1, June 2, 1856. 

12. J. H. Gubbins : "Progress of Japan," 1853-71, reprints in an 

appendix all of these early treaties. 

13. S. Ex. Doc. No. 34 :33-2. 

14. Stead : "Japan by the Japanese," p. 150. 

15. Sir Robert K. Douglas: "Europe and the Far East," p. 155. 

16. "Foreign Relations," 1879, pp. 27 ff. These reports, while no 

doubt based upon inaccurate interpretation, appear to be a 
reliable record nowhere else obtainable of the negotiations 
at Yedo. 

17. Gubbins : p. 257. 

18. Japan Dispatches, Vol. 1, Aug. 7, 1858. 

19. The Elgin negotiations are given in the British Parliamentary 

Papers, 1859. 2 Sess. Com. 33. Corres. rel. to the Earl of 
Elgin's special Mission to China and Japan, 1857-59; see also 
Oliphant's "Lord Elgin's Mission." 

20. It is hardly fair to place the blame for reducing the tariff exclu- 

sively on Great Britain, as Payson J. Treat does in his gener- 
ally admirable Early Diplomatic Relations between the United 
States and Japan, 1853-65, p. 117. 

21. Griffis : "Harris," p. 267. 



366 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

22. Harris Journal (Lib. of Cong.), Section III, p. 43. 

23. Ihid., p. 46. 

24. The most thorough reviews, based on Japanese sources, of the 

domestic situation in Japan are: Treat's Early Diplomatic 
Relations; Gubbins: The Progress of Japan. The student is 
fortunate in the study of this period in that so much Japanese 
material has been made available in English, by both Japanese 
and English scholars. See Bibliography for complete list. 

25. Longford: "Story of Old Japan," p. 302. 



CHAPTER XX 

ANSON BURLINGAME 

Anson Burlingame/ the first American Minister to 
reside in Peking, was about forty-one years old when he 
arrived in China in the latter part of 1861. By birth he 
belonged to pioneer American stock, his parents having 
moved from New England to northern New York where 
he was born, and then to Michigan Territory where he re- 
ceived his primary and academic education. But by choice 
Burlingame belonged to the culture and traditions of Bos- 
ton; he went to Harvard for his training in law, married 
in Cambridge, and entered Massachusetts politics at an 
early age. His character and career bear witness both to 
the pioneering spirit of his parental heritage and the urban- 
ity and culture of his social environment.^ 

Burlingame served three terms in Congress but in 1860, 
notwithstanding his anti-slavery sentiments and his support 
of Lincoln, he was defeated for reelection. In the House 
of Representatives he had served as a member of the com- 
mittee on foreign affairs, where his freedom-loving nature 
expressed itself in an ardent championship of Kossuth and 
Sardinian independence. Even more characteristic of the 
man was his denunciation of Preston Brooks in the House 
of Representatives for the assault on Charles Sumner. Be- 
cause of this rebuke Brooks challenged him to a duel and 
Burlingame promptly accepted, naming rifles as the 
weapons and Deer Island, near Niagara Falls, as the place. 
Brooks then declined to meet him. Early in 1861 President 
Lincoln appointed Burlingame Minister to Austria, but be- 
fore he arrived at his post the Austrian Government ex- 
pressed disapproval of the appointment on the ground that 
Burlingame had been too ardent an advocate of Kossuth. 

367 



368 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

The post at Peking was then offered to BurHngame and 
accepted. 

Burlingame arrived in China in October, 1861, and en- 
tered upon residence in Peking in the summer of 1862. 
In 1865 he returned to the United States on leave, probably 
with the expectation of resigning his post and reentering 
politics, but he was persuaded to return to China. He 
reached Peking to begin the second part of his service in 
the latter part of 1866, after an absence of fifteen months, 
and a year later, November 21, 1867, he resigned ^ "in the 
interests of my country and civilization" ; he had accepted 
the position of envoy of the Empire to all of the Western 
powers then having treaties with China. With two Chinese 
associates and a retinue of thirty people he set out for the 
United States. 

In June, 1868, on behalf of China, he negotiated with 
Seward * eight additional articles to the Treaty of Tientsin, 
and then departed for London. He secured from Lord Clar- 
endon, who had recently returned to the Foreign Office 
with the first Gladstone Ministry, an agreement which, 
while not so formal as a treaty, nevertheless fully answered 
his purpose. Thus strengthened by his successful negotia- 
tions with the United States and Great Britain, he moved 
on to the Continent visiting Paris, Berlin, and the capitals 
of the northern kingdoms, arriving in Petrograd early in 
1870. There he contracted pneumonia and died February 
23, thus terminating before the age of fifty a truly brilliant 
career. Some of the more conspicuous of his achievements 
in China and for China must be noted in detail, and in the 
records of these will be found the marks of his peculiar 
qualities of heart and mind. Burlingame was easily the 
most capable American diplomatic representative in China 
since Caleb Gushing who, though superior to him in intel- 
lect, lacked his unselfish idealism and breadth of statesman- 
ship. 

The survey of the work of Anson Burlingame falls natu- 
rally into three parts: his service in Peking; the supplemen- 
tary articles to the treaty of Tientsin; and the reception 



ANSON BURLINGAME 369 

of the Burlingame Mission in England and Europe, as well 
as its influence in China. 



The Suppression of the Taiping Rebellion 

Notwithstanding the continuing strength of the 
Taipings after the establishment of the rebel capital in 
Nanking in 1853 — a strength which was purely relative to 
the utter weakness of the Imperial forces — and notwith- 
standing the continuance of a considerable sympathy for 
the rebels on the part of the Christian nations, and among 
foreign traders and adventurers in China who found profit 
in assisting and ministering to the needs of the rebels, the 
fate of the rebellion was sealed when Lord Elgin and Baron 
Gros concluded their negotiations with Prince Kung in Pe- 
king in 1860. Great Britain had decided that it was better 
policy to support and strengthen the dynasty than to per- 
mit the Empire to fall to pieces in rebellion. Thus the 
policy first advocated in theory by Humphrey Marshall for 
the United States became the practice of all the treaty 
powers, Russia included, seven years later. 

For assisting the Imperial Government the United 
States, because of the Civil War, was quite unable, even 
had it been willing, to lend the aid recommended by Mar- 
shall. The American naval forces in China in 1861 were 
almost entirely withdrawn. The United States could do 
nothing except give approval to what the other powers 
proposed. The American share in the suppression of the 
Taipings, while by no means inconsiderable, was entirely 
unofficial and individual. 

Alluring as the subject is, the part played by General 
Frederick T. Ward,^ by his successor Burgevine, and by 
other Americans who joined the Ever- Victorious Army can 
hardly claim attention as important in a study of the policy 
of the United States in China. General Ward, who organ- 
ized the force of Chinese with the assistance of a cosmopoli- 
tan corps of foreign adventurers as subordinate officers, was 
sponsored by Admiral Sir James Hope, and by him was 



370 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

introduced to Burlingame shortly after the latter's arrival 
in Shanghai in 1862.*^ The American minister accepted 
Ward because of this introduction, and because of the suc- 
cesses with Chinese troops which Ward had achieved, but 
the promotion of Ward in the Chinese service was due to 
his own worth and to the British Admiral's backing rather 
than to any assistance from American officials. Indeed 
the Americans, already disgraced so often by the unre- 
strained license of adventurers in China, appear to have 
placed confidence in Ward only cautiously. In the later 
part of 1862 Ward was fatally wounded and the leaderless 
army thrown into confusion. But by that time the value 
of such a force was so evident that its dissolution would 
have been regarded by all of the foreign representatives 
and perhaps by the Imperial Government as a catastrophe. 
It had proved to be a most useful means by which the for- 
eign governments could unofficially support the Imperial 
Government in its desperate struggle with the rebels, yet 
without raising embarrassing questions either among them- 
selves or with the Chinese Government. Ward's force had 
also demonstrated a fact which must never be forgotten, 
namely, that the Chinese, under competent leadership, 
make excellent soldiers. 

Meanwhile the utmost harmony existed between the 
representatives of the foreign powers in Peking. Upon the 
death of Ward it was agreed that his successor ought also, 
in the interests of equality of influence for the foreign 
powers, to be an American. The British authorities were 
especially willing to agree to this because at that time the 
offices in the Foreign Inspectorate of Customs had passed 
largely into British hands, and plans were already under 
way to create a naval flotilla for China which also would be 
under a British officer. Both Sir Frederick Bruce and Bur- 
lingame joined in urging the appointment to the Ever- Vic- 
torious Army of Burgevine, another American who had been 
an associate of Ward's and of high rank among his foreign 
officers. The appointment was made with disastrous re- 
sults into the details of which it is not possible to go. 



ANSON BURLINGAME 371 

Burgevine was an adventurer with an exceptional imagina- 
tion and perhaps cherished the idea of carving out for him- 
self an empire in AsiaJ His motives were suspected from 
the outset, and of the successes of his army Li Hung Chang, 
its titular head, was jealous. Burgevine lost his temper and 
played into the hands of Li Hung Chang. When removed 
from his command he deceived Burlingame and made the 
American minister again his advocate. For a time the 
Burgevine affair not only imperilled the Imperial efforts to 
suppress the rebels but also seriously embarrassed Mr. Bur- 
lingame's relations with the Chinese Government.^ Had 
Burgevine not failed to live up to the confidence which was 
reposed in him, the result of the part that General Ward 
played in the Ever Victorious Army might have been the 
greatest of benefits for the improvement of the already cor- 
dial relations between Burlingame and Prince Kung. The 
Imperial Government, immediately after the death of 
Ward, heaped his memory with posthumous honors and set 
apart two memorial chapels to him. But the failure of 
Burgevine, to which was subsequently added the prolonged 
and irritating negotiations and representations over the 
Ward estate,^ more than counteracted all the initial good 
so far as concerns the relations between the United States 
and China. To Major Gordon of the British Army was 
entrusted, with the approval of all, the task which fell from 
the hand of Ward, and the even more difficult responsibility 
of finally disbanding the Ever- Victorious Army before its 
adventurer-officers fell under the temptation to which 
Burgevine had succumbed and created fresh troubles for dis- 
traught China. 

Burlingame's extraordinary personal magnetism as well 
as his evident desire to deal fairly with everyone overcame 
many obstacles in both his dealings with Prince Kung and 
with his diplomatic colleagues, and notwithstanding his mis- 
take in supporting Burgevine, his influence in Peking in- 
creased rapidly. In the difficult matter of the disposal of 
the Lay-Osborn Flotilla in 1863 ^^ Prince Kung sought his 
advice and followed it, and the confidence then acquired by 



372 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

the Chinese Government in his justice and sagacity con- 
tributed in large measure to his appointment as envoy to 
the foreign powers in 1867. 

The greatest contribution of the American minister, 
however, to the international relations of the Chinese Em- 
pire during the period of his service, was his application of 
the policy of cooperation in the difficult years of 1863, 1864 
and 1865. 

BURLINGAME AND COOPERATION 

Every American representative since the days of Hum- 
phrey Marshall had been instructed to cooperate with the 
other powers in every way consistent with the peaceful 
policy of the United States in China, and consistent with 
the policy of the open door of equal opportunity for all. 
Cooperation, however, had broken down because neither 
Great Britain nor France were willing to accept peaceful 
methods of settling disputes, because their ultimate inten- 
tions in the empire were matters of suspicion and because 
the American government was unwilling to incur any of 
the financial or political liabilities incident to cooperation. 
In 1863 the foreign powers had secured from China all that 
they desired, and the ground was therefore prepared for 
Burlingame. Burlingame's proposals were based upon the 
assumption, to which Sir Frederick Bruce heartily agreed, 
and to which the other ministers acceded either from con- 
victions or because of its obvious immediate advantages, 
that the interests of the treaty powers in China were iden- 
tical. All desired the fulfillment of treaty obligations, none 
of them was prepared to enforce them alone if such en- 
forcement were to call for the last resort, and the best as- 
surance of peaceful success was in the forgetting of rivalries 
and in the presentation of a united front to the Imperial 
Government. 

One of the most important questions in which a policy 
of cooperation seemed necessary, was the proper interpre 
tations of rights in the so-called concessions for the resi 
dence of foreigners. Notwithstanding the declarations at 



ANSON BURLINGAME 373 

Shanghai in 1853-1854, the tendency was for the foreigners 
to treat land concessions, the number of which had been 
greatly increased in 1858, as actual cessions of territory to 
which China no longer could claim the sovereign rights. 
In the face of all such claims Burlingame contended that 
"any concession of territory would be an abridgment of 
our treaty rights." Thus again American interests were 
seen to coincide with the interests of the empire itself. The 
territorial integrity of the Chinese Empire became a cardi- 
nal doctrine of American policy. 



interviews [with the Chinese officials] to keep the non-concession 
doctrine before them, because I had been made aware in Shanghai, 
by conversations with the British consul, that he and the British resi- 
dents supposed they had a quasi territorial concession at Shanghai 
over which they could maintain jurisdiction not only over British 
subjects but over Chinese. This assumption led the French to make 
like claims, and the result was that there was a race, apparently, be- 
tween the British and French local authorities as to which could 
secure the most. I brought the question, in many conversations, to 
the attention of the British and Russian ministers, and since his 
arrival, to the French minister. I am happy to say that I found my 
views accorded with theirs, and that we are now, on this most im- 
portant question, in perfect agreement ; and this agreement is a guar- 
antee of the territorial integrity of the Chinese Empire." 

The policy of cooperation, under Burlingame, became 
very specific and practical whereas it had hitherto been 
theoretical and vague. Its origin, development and appli- 
cation may best be described in its author's own words. The 
basis of the policy Burlingame stated as follows :^^ ". . . if 
the treaty powers could agree among themselves to the neu- 
trahty of China, and together secure order in the treaty 
ports, and give their moral support to the party in China 
in favor of order, the interests of humanity would be sub- 
served, ..." 

"Upon my arrival at Pekin," wrote Burlingame, "I at once elab- 
orated my views and found, upon comparing them with those held by 
the representatives of England and Russia, that they were in accord 
with theirs. After mature deliberation, we determined to consult 
and cooperate upon all questions. . . . Preliminary to entering into 
thorough cooperation, I held it to be my duty to ascertain the ulterior 



374 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

purposes of the treaty powers having, by position and trade, a leading 
place in China. 

"I found Mr. Balluzee, the Russian minister, prompt to answer, 
in the spirit of the Russian treaty, that his government did not desire 
to menace at any time the territorial i ntegrity of China, but on the 
contrary, wished to bring it more and more into the family of 
nations, subject, in its relations with foreign powers, to the obliga- 
tions of international law. That he was but too happy to cooperate 
in a policy that would engraft western upon eastern civilization, 
without a disruption of the Chinese Empire. 

"With Sir Frederick Bruce, the British minister, my conversa- 
tions were elaborate and exhaustive. I said to him frankly, that we 
represented the first trading powers here, and that our interests were 
identical, and I was ready not only from individual desire, but be- 
cause of the wishes of my government, to cooperate with him. He 
met me in a large and generous spirit, and said that he had ever 
desired to cooperate with the other treaty powers, and pointed out in 
dispatches to his government the evidences of such desires, and ex- 
pressed his delight that the representative of the United States should 
hold views so coincident with his owb. I said to him that while I 
paid full homage to the energy of his government in opening China, 
and for affording protection to the citizens of the United States, still 
I felt, looking to British antecedents, a little distrust about the 
future; that our trade by the way of California was increasing, and 
I felt anxious about its future condition. I illustrated my views of 
distrust by reference to the controlling influence of the British in the 
custom-house, and in the pretensions set up by his countrymen in the 
treaty ports in favor of territorial concessions. He agreed with me 
that the sensitiveness was natural, and replied that he would be 
pleased to remove every ground for it. He said that circumstances 
more than design had given the English the seeming control of 
affairs at the treaty ports ; that in the first place the English trade 
was very large; and besides, from long connection with the East, 
many of his countrymen had acquired knowledge of the Chinese 
language, and when persons were wanted it was natural that those 
most qualified in that respect should be selected. He pointed out 
that long ago he had recommended that the custom-house should be 
put upon a cosmopolitan footing, and that Mr. Lay, who was at the 
head of it, had endeavored to carry out his views. 

"I must admit that in this he was right. I was applied to by the 
Chinese, through their employe, Mr. Hart, then at the head of the 
customs, for Americans to fill places, but I could not find any who had 
studied Chinese. One of the first places in the Chinese service was 
tendered to our consul, Mr. Seward, but he could not, he thought, with 
justice to his own government accept it. If we had had a school for 
interpreters, our proper influence would have been far greater than 
it is now. Besides, the English have been compelled to defend the 
treaty ports without any assistance from us, and we have enjoyed the 
fruits of that protection. But in the face of these obvious facts, Sir 
Frederick admitted that it was not in the interest of England to hold 
a position which gave her special privileges, and subjected her need- 



ANSON BURLINGAME 375 

lessly to the criticism of the other treaty powers, and therefore he 
was willing to have any arrangements made by which she would not 
be put in a false position. 

"He did not wish, as far as he was concerned, that English officers 
should lead against the Taipings. He prefers that the Chinese should 
employ for purposes of drill and discipline, men from the smaller 
states of Europe, and that I might rely upon it that he would do all 
he could to relieve England from the charge of being the 'great bully' 
of the East ; to relieve her 'from the dilemma of being forced by local 
clamor to commit acts of violence which, though in accordance with 
past usage, and perhaps justified by our (their) former situation, do 
not fail to jar unpleasantly on the conscience of England and of the 
civilized world.' The force policy was wrong, and he was certain that 
his government had had enough of wars brought about through hasty 
action of men in the East not under the sway of large ideas. He was 
for a change of policy, . . . 

"Upon this frank avowal of the policy of England, it would be 
impossible to refuse cooperation. The Russian minister and myself 
both concurred in the view that the position of Sir Frederick was 
just what we desired, and we hailed with delight its avowal. The 
French minister, Mr. Berthemy, agrees with us. Being a broad and 
experienced statesman, he at once saw the advantage that would flow 
from the casting down of all jealousies, and by a cooperation on evei'y 
material question in China. Indeed he has realized largely the ad- 
vantages of such action; the French Charge d'Ajf aires before him, 
acting upon the old-school policy of antagonizing everybody, thus 
causing the Chinese to believe that we were divided among ourselves, 
for one year failed to get justice from the Chinese Government, where 
it was due, in a case in which we were all interested. 

"The policy upon which we are agreed is briefly this : that while 
we claim our treaty right to buy and sell, and hire, in the treaty 
ports, subject, in respect to our rights of property and person, to the 
jurisdiction of our own governments, we will not ask for, nor take 
concessions of, territory in the treaty ports, or in any way interfere 
with the jurisdiction of the Chinese Government over its own people, 
nor ever menace the territorial integrity of the Chinese Empire. 
That we will not take part in the internal struggles in China, beyond 
what is necessary to maintain our treaty rights. That the latter we 
will unitedly sustain against all who rnay violate them. To this end 
we are now clear in the policy of defending the treaty ports against 
the Taipings, or rebels ; but in such a way as not to make war upon 
that considerable body of the Chinese people, by following them into 
the interior of their country. In this connection, while we feel de- 
sirous, from what we know of it, to have the rebellion put down, still 
we have come to question the policy of lending government officers 
to lead the Chinese in the field, for fear of complications among our- 
selves, growing out of the relative number to be employed, &c. That 
while we wish to give our moral support to the government, at the 
present time the power in the country which seems disposed to main- 
tain order and our treaty rights, we should prefer that it would 
organize its own people as far as possible for its own defense, taking 



376 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

only foreigners for instruction in the arts of peace and war, and these, 
as far as possible, from the smaller treaty powers. 

"To maintain the revenue laws of the government, to relieve the 
treaty powers from the burdens attending the suppression of piracy 
along the coast, the Chinese Government has been persuaded to pur- 
chase several small war steamers, and to man them temporarily with 
foreigners. This fleet is coming out under the command of Sherard 
Osborn, and is manned chiefly by English sailors, with the under- 
standing that it is a temporary arrangement; and that, too, is to 
become cosmopolitan; and on the idea that we are to cooperate upon 
all questions in China, no special objection is made to the force by 
the other treaty powers. I confess that I should be pleased, were it 
more cosmopolitan now, but it was arranged before I came out, and 
before the above policy was developed and agreed upon. While Sir 
Frederick Bruce shall remain, or while the policy now agreed upon 
shall be maintained, no harm can come from it. 

''That the indemnity may be collected and accounted for, and 
that the Chinese Government may have a fund to maintain a national 
force, organized upon European principles; that the local authorities 
may be checked in their corrupt practices, and a uniform system for 
the collection of the revenue maintained, it is agreed on all hands 
that the present foreign custom-house system is the best as yet de- 
vised, and, as it has been administered by Mr. Lay, entitled to our 
support. Indeed it is alone through such instrumentalities that we 
can hope to advance in the cause of civilization in China. As Sir 
Frederick states, there can be nothing more unmeaning than antago- 
nism between the United States and Great Britain in China. I need 
not attempt to prove the advantages which must flow from coopera- 
tion; that we should do so all must admit. By the favored-nation 
clause in the treaties, no nation can gain by any sharp act of diplo- 
macy any privilege not secured to all. 

"The circumstances conspire to make this a fortunate moment in 
which to inaugurate the cooperative policy. 

"The treaty powers are represented here by men of modern ideas ; 
by men who, in this land, where everything is to be done, do not 
choose to embarrass each other by sowing distrust in the Chinese 
mind, but who with an open policy and common action, deepen each 
other's confidence and win the respect of the Chinese. That the too 
sanguine hopes in relation to China of our more advanced civilization 
may be fully realized by any action we may take, ought not to be 
expected. The peculiar people we are among must be remembered; 
how hoary is their civilization, and how proud they are, and how 
ignorant of us they have always been, and how little their knowledge 
of some of us has tended to create in their minds a desire for a 
change. Their government is good in theory, but not now well admin- 
istered. The people are free to license, and, as in our own country, 
we find a portion of them in rebellion, because they have felt too little 
the influence of the central government. 

"The trouble here now is that we are dealing with a regency 
which in a few years must hand over its doings to the Emperor, and 
those he may call around him. The regency dare not depart in the 



ANSON BURLINGAME 377 

smallest particular from the old traditions, and yet these will not do 
for these times. They are distrustful of us, and are afraid of their 
censors and distant local authorities. Besides, there is a large anti- 
foreign party here. There are members of the foreign board who, 
if left to themselves, would at once place China in perfect interna- 
tional relations with us ; but sitting with them are spies, who paralyze 
them in their action with us, to fall, as they frequently do, far short 
of their promises. In their weakness they resort to tergiversations to 
such an extent as to invite menace, and to cause us in our passionate 
modes almost to despair of holding, with dignity, any relations at all 
with them." 

One detects in this dispatch many of the personal quali- 
ties which gave distinction to the character of its author, 
and especially his enthusiastic optimism. It is therefore not 
to be wondered at that the sober-minded and experienced 
Secretary of State felt that the application of such a policy 
was almost too much to expect. He wrote to Burlingame:^^ 

"One may very reasonably fear that the beneficial policy thus 
agreed upon would fall into disuse if those ministers, or any of them, 
should at any time give place to less intelligent and able statesmen. 
But this consideration does not deter the President from giving it 
his entire approval; and he sincerely hopes that a successful trial of 
it, during the residence of those ministers in China, will render its 
continuance afterwards a cardinal fact in the policy of all the mari- 
time powers." 

Seward had indeed placed his finger on the weak spot. 
The policy of cooperation was purely personal, depending 
entirely upon the enthusiastic and sincere convictions of 
Bruce and Burlingame, and no sooner had these men dis- 
appeared from China than the policy began to lapse, al- 
though efforts were sometimes made to drag it out in the 
service of some power otherwise unable to accomplish its 
own peculiar purposes. 

That Burlingame was not unaware of the difficulties is 
apparent from a subsequent letter of his to the consul gen- 
eral at Shanghai in which he summarized the policy as 
follows: ^^ 

_ "You will_ perceive that we are making an efFort to substitute 
fair diplomatic action in China for force; and thus cooperation be- 
comes the rule in carrying out these relations. It should be sincere; 
and to be effective requires in the first place a predisposition to get 



378 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

on well with one's colleagues; and in the second, that just modera- 
tion which cannot fail to win the respect and confidence of one's 
associates." 



The First Chinese Mission — Treaty of 1868 

There were several reasons which predisposed the Im- 
perial Government to think well of the Burlingame Mis- 
sion to the Western powers in 1867. In addition to the 
great confidence which was reposed in Burlingame was the 
fact that the following year the British treaty of Tientsin 
would be due for revision, and the Chinese knew that the 
British merchants, never as contented as their government 
with the advantages secured under that treaty, were prepar- 
ing to urge upon China further demands, some of which 
the Imperial authorities intended firmly to resist. Per- 
haps the most important of the expected demands, in the 
estimation of the Chinese, was the throwing open of China, 
regardless of treaty ports, for railways and telegraphs. ^^ 
But there were more general reasons. Instructed by the 
experiences in 1839 and 1858, the Chinese authorities saw 
clearly that any resistance to the demands of foreign powers 
might lead again to invasion and war. The more liberal 
element in the Chinese Government was already having a 
most dif&cult time in the face of the reactionary party, and 
the application of further force by foreign nations would 
cost the liberal party its leadership and result fatally for 
the empire. 

China had already assumed many obligations to the 
treaty powers which the officials at Peking were not fully 
able to discharge because of the large amount of autonomy 
possessed by the provinces. Peking might propose but the 
provinces disposed. Where the terms of a treaty conflicted 
with the long established rights and practices of the local 
authorities, it was as difficult to bring the provinces into 
line as it was subsequently difficult to bring the Pacific 
Coast states into harmony with the national government in 
the matter of Asiatic immigration to the United States. The 
treaties of Tientsin in the duties they imposed upon China, 



fli 



ANSON BURLINGAME 379 

really called for the reorganization of the Empire itself in 
such grave matters as provincial autonomy, the collection 
of inland revenue and the disposal of military forces, but 
such reorganization of the Empire while the Imperial 
authority was so weak was utterly impossible. China was 
clearly not in a position with safety to itself to assume even 
more extensive obligations to the powers such as would be 
inevitable in the revision of the treaties of 1858. 

Burlingame's reasons for accepting the novel post, aside 
from purely personal ones, are also not difficult to see. Dur- 
ing his absence in the United States the previous year, Sir 
Frederick Bruce having already been transferred to Wash- 
ington, the policy of cooperation among the ministers, just 
as Seward feared it might, had largely broken down. To 
resuscitate this cooperative spirit and give it guaranties for 
the future required something more than the personal as- 
sent of the various ministers. It must be secured by agree- 
ment with the governments they represented. On the other 
hand if the policy were to fail utterly it was clear to Bur- 
lingame, to Hart, to any impartial observer, that the conse- 
quences not only for China but for the entire world must 
eventually be most serious. The partition of the Empire 
following a conflict of foreign nations within the bounds of 
China itself seemed very possible. To contribute anything 
towards the avoidance of such a calamity was a motive 
worthy to inspire the best efforts of any man, and Bur- 
lingame was fully conscious of the vast issues which might 
hang on the success of his mission. 

Late in February, 1868, the Burlingame Mission sailed 
from Shanghai for San Francisco. It met in the United 
States with the heartiest of receptions. The picturesque 
appearance of the retinue and the moving eloquence of 
Burlingame, who managed the tour according to the best 
traditions of the showman's art, captured the imagination 
of the American people. The people of the United States 
were now little interested in securing new trade concessions 
in China, and heartily enjoyed the diversion and entertain- 
ment which the Mission afforded. Into the details of the 



<^ 



380 AMERICANS IK EASTERN ASIA 

tour from San Francisco eastward and the numerous re- 
ceptions and dinners it is impossible to go. But the supple- 
mentary articles to the Treaty of Tientsin, usually known 
as the Burhngame Treaty, signed at Washington July 28, 
1868, will repay careful study as an expression of both 
American opinion and American policy towards China. 

Considered as a treaty, aside from the immigration stip- 
ulations, the articles are not of great importance. Their 
negotiation was quite unauthorized, so far as China was 
concerned. There is no reason to suppose that Prince Kung 
was anything but surprised to be presented with these ar- 
ticles for ratification. As for the United States the articles 
were unnecessary. They added little either to American 
privileges or obligations. But as an expression of public 
sentiment in the United States and as a solemn declaration 
of ofiicial policy towards China the supplementary articles 
of 1868 were, in some respects, more authoritative than 
either the Cushing Treaty of 1844 or the Reed Treaty of 
1858. They were entirely removed from the atmosphere of 
commercial competition, they were negotiated freely and not 
under compulsion, and they were written by the American 
Secretary of State with the Envoy of China, as it were, 
standing at his elbow, telling him what to write.^*' Fur- 
thermore, the drafting of the articles had been preceded 
by a period of intensive education of public opinion in which 
the envoy of China had been allowed to plead his case be- 
fore the American people. 

There were eight articles to the agreement and for 
nearly all of them there was a background of history in 
Burlingame's six years of experience as American minister 
in Peking. 

The appointment of Chinese consuls (Article 3) in the 
United States was in line with the efforts already made by 
Sir Robert Hart, by Burlingame, and by Seward, to en- 
courage the Government of China to send official repre- 
sentatives abroad. 

Freedom from persecution because of religious beliefs 
in China had been stipulated in Article 29 of the American 



ANSON BURLINGAME 381 

Treaty of Tientsin, Article 6 of the supplementary treaty 
extended this guarantee of tolerance to include also the 
Chinese in the United States. This article "recalls the great 
doctrine of the Constitution which gives to a man the right 
to hold any faith which his conscience may dictate," to use 
Mr. Burlingame's own explanation ^"^ of what therefore 
seems to be a quite unnecessary treaty stipulation. 

Likewise the article (7) stipulating that "citizens of the 
United States may freely establish and maintain schools 
within the Empire of China at those places where foreigners 
are by treaty permitted to reside ; and, reciprocally, Chinese 
subjects may enjoy the same privileges and immunities in 
the United States," was meaningless except as it gave the 
American missionary in China a little better leverage for 
the strengthening of his work. The missionaries had al- 
ready begun to establish schools long before 1868. The re- 
mainder of this article by which access to government 
schools in each country should be given to students of the 
other, looked in the direction of a policy already urged by 
S. Wells Williams and Burlingame, to encourage the Chi- 
nese to take up Western education in a school to be estab- 
lished in China with the balance of the indemnity money. 
It was also in line with the fact that already Dr. W. A. P. 
Martin, an American missionary, was teaching in a gov- 
ernment college in Peking where Chinese pupils were to be 
prepared for the customs service, and was soon to become 
director of the school.^ ^ The other articles of the treaty 
deal with matters of more far-reaching consequence. 

The United States disclaimed and disavowed (Article 
8) "any intention or right to intervene in the domestic ad- 
ministration of China in regard to the construction of rail- 
roads, telegraphs, or other material internal improvements." 
At the same time the United States engaged to nominate, 
if at any time they were desired, "suitable engineers to be 
employed by the Chinese Government." This article was, 
on the one hand, fully in harmony with the policy already 
adopted by Seward and Burlingame with reference to the 
efforts of an American company to secure and operate a 



382 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

concession for a telegraph line along the coast/^ and on 
the other, looked towards the building up of a system of 
foreign technical advisers who should enter Chinese ser- 
vice as Raphael Pumpelly, an American engineer, had done 
in 1863.^" This plan was also merely an extension of the 
arrangement by which foreigners had taken service in the 
Chinese Maritime customs, and by which Anson Bur- 
lingame himself now appeared in the role of political ad- 
viser to the Chinese Government. That Article 8 of the 
Burlingame Treaty was an expression of permanent Ameri- 
can policy jn China is amply proved by the long succession 
of distinguished Americans who have since appeared in the 
service of the Chinese Government. The article also regis- 
tered the corresponding stern disapproval by the United 
States of any system of commercial exploitation of the 
resources of Chin^ by foreigners who would depend upon 
the mihtary forces of their governments to sustain and ex- 
tend their privileges. 

The fifth and sixth articles of the Burlingame Treaty 
dealing with the question of Chinese immigration to Cali- 
fornia will be considered in Chapter XXVIII. The most 
significant part of the supplementary articles, however, 
from the viewpoint of American policy were Articles 1 and 
2 in which were asserted in the most uncompromising terms 
that China possessed, in spite of the doctrine of extraterri- 
toriality, and in spite of the engagement already made to 
the powers, full sovereign rights over her territory. The 
meaning of these articles was explained by Burlingame as 
follows : 

"In the first place, it declares the neutrality of the Chinese waters 
in opposition to the pretensions of the exterritoriality doctrine, that 
inasmuch as the persons and the property of the people of the foreign 
powers were under the jurisdiction of those powers, therefore it was 
the right of parties contending with each other to attack each other in 
the Chinese waters, thus making those waters the place of their con- 
flict. The treaty traverses all such absurd pretensions. It strikes 
down the so-called concession doctrines, under which the nationals 
of different countries located upon spots of land in the treaty ports 
had come to believe that they could take jurisdiction there not only 
of their own nationals, not only of the person and property of their 



ANSON BURLINGAME 383 

own people, but take jurisdiction of the Chinese and the people of 
other countries. When this question was called under discussion and 
referred to the home governments, not by the Chinese originally, but 
by those foreign nations who felt that their treaty rights were being 
abridged by these concession doctrines, the distant foreign countries 
could not stand the discussion for a moment. And I aver that every 
treaty power had abandoned the concession doctrines, though some 
of their officials at the present time in China undertake to contend 
for them, undertake to expel the Chinese, to attack the Chinese, to 
protect the Chinese, although the territory did not belong to them. 
China has never abandoned her eminent domain, never abandoned on 
that territory her jurisdiction, and I trust she never will. This treaty 
strikes down all the pretensions about all the concessions of terri- 
tory." '' 

From such words it is clear that the intention of Mr. 
BurHngame in his mission to the Western powers was not 
merely to give his policy of cooperation among the powers in 
China the force of treaty engagements but also to bring the 
powers to the formal affirmation of the objects for which the 
cooperation was to be employed.-^ The policy of coopera- 
tion was a two-edged sword which might cut either way, 
and Burlingame was seeking a formal agreement to the prin- 
ciples upon which he and Sir Frederick Bruce had been 
in such hearty agreement in Peking a few years before but 
which were evidently not in accord with the ideas of the 
British mercantile community nor with those of the impor- 
tant French officials.-^ It seems equally clear that these 
first two articles of the Burlingame Treaty officially ex- 
pressed what might already be called the traditional Ameri- 
can policy with reference to China: the sovereignty and 
integrity of China must be maintained, and the door for 
equal opportunities in trade must be left open for the free 
competition of all nations with due regard for the sov- 
ereign rights of the Empire. On the other hand the articles 
entirely blinked the fact that the treaties of 1858 had in 
practice, as well as in the way in which they were nego- 
tiated, already seriously transgressed on the rights of China 
as a sovereign power. 

Fundamentally Mr. Burlingame's object was to read 
China back into the family of nations from which the Em- 
pire had been read out by Caleb Cushing in 1844, when he 



384 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

rested his doctrine of extraterritoriality on the ground that 
China was a pagan state.-* In his address before the city 
council of Boston Burlingame said : 

"Again this treaty recognizes China as an equal among the na- 
tions, in opposition to the old doctrine that because she was not a 
Christian nation, she could not be placed in the roll of nations. But 
I will not discuss that question. The greatest living authority upon 
Eastern questions is here tonight — Mr. Cushing. He has stated that 
position more fully than any one else, while his heart has leaned ever 
up to the side of the Chinese." 

Mr. Burlingame's effort, however, rested upon a premise 
far less sound than Mr. Cushing's, for it assumed as true 
what was entirely contrary to fact, viz., that the Chinese 
Empire was a strong centralized government capable of 
controlling its own provinces and equally capable of dealing 
with the European powers on terms of military equality. 

This false assumption that China was able to exercise 
all the functions of sovereignty has underlaid a very large 
part of the entire political relations of the United States 
with reference to China. 

Before concluding a review of the Burlingame Mission 
in the United States one must note not merely the Bur- 
lingame Treaty but also the speeches of the man whose 
name it bears. Mr. Burlingame was an orator, skilled in 
all the arts of a style of oratory which has now largely 
passed away. His orations abounded not in logic, not in 
reasoned deductions from carefully ascertained and clearly 
described facts, but in illustrations and flights of eloquence 
designed not so much to induce a conclusion as to produce 
an impression. While they clearly reflected his own con- 
victions they did not always keep step with the facts as 
seen by more sober-minded observers. One illustration, 
from his famous address at a dinner given in honor of the 
Mission in New York will suffice.-^ 

"China, seeing another civilization approaching on every side, has 
her eyes open. She sees Russia on the north, Europe on the west, 
America on the east. She sees a cloud of sail on her coast, she sees 
the mighty steamers coming from everywhere — bow on. She feels 
the spark from the electric telegraph falling hot upon her everywhere; 



ANSON BURLINGAME 385 

she rouses herself, not in anger, but for argument. She finds that by 
not being in a position to compete with other nations for so long a 
time she has lost ground. She finds that she must come into relations 
with this civilization that is pressing up around her, and feeling that, 
she does not wait but comes out to you and extends to you her hand. 
She tells you she is ready to take upon her ancient civilization the 
graft of your civilization. She tells you she is ready to take back 
her own inventions, with all their developments. She tells you that 
she is willing to trade with you, to buy of you, to sell to you, to help 
you strike off the shackles from trade. She invites your merchants, 
she invites your missionaries. She tells the latter to plant the shining 
cross on every hill and in every valley. For she is hospitable to fair 
argument. . . . 

"Let her alone ; let her have her independence ; let her develop 
herself in her own time and in her own way. She has no hostility to 
you. Let her do this and she will initiate a movement which will be 
felt in every workshop of the civilized world. She says now : 'Send us 
your wheat, your lumber, your coal, your silver, your goods from 
everywhere — we will take as many of them as we can. We will give 
you back our tea, our silk, free labor, which we have sent so largely out 
into the world.' ... It has overflowed upon Siam, upon the British 
provinces, upon Singapore, upon Manila, upon Peru, Cuba, Australia 
and California. All she asks is that you will be as kind to her na- 
tionals as she is to your nationals. She wishes simply that you will 
do justice. She is willing not only to exchange goods with you, but 
she is willing to exchange thoughts. She is willing to give you what 
she thinks is her intellectual civilization in exchange for your material 
civilization. Let her alone, and the caravans on the roads of the 
north, toward Russia, will swarm in larger numbers than ever before. 
Let her alone, and that silver which has been flowing for hundreds 
of years into China, losing itself like the lost rivers of the West, but 
which yet exists, will come out into the affairs of men. . . . The 
imagination kindles at the future which may be, and which will be, 
if you will be fair and just to China." 

The assertion by the official spokesman of the Empire 
that China invited the foreign merchants and the foreign 
missionaries, and was ready for the latter to plant 'the 
shining cross on every hill and in every valley' was a trav- 
esty of the truth, and the statement made in the same 
speech that China was willing to accept Western interna- 
tional law rested on little more than that Dr. W. A. P. 
Martin had translated Wheaton's "Elements of Inter- 
national Law" into Chinese, and that it was being taught 
in the recently established customs college.^® 

Such assertions created wrong impressions as to the 
exact condition of China and stimulated an optimism from 



386 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

which there must be an inevitable reaction when the facts 
were known. In China such statements filled the foreigners 
with dismay.^'^ Happily for the Mission when it reached 
England and the Continent there were few opportunities for 
speeches, and Burlingame's talents could be directed to per- 
sonal negotiations for which his rare political qualities 
fitted him nearly as well as for speech-making. 

The Burlingame Mission in Europe and China 

The Burlingame Treaty had the effect, most emphati- 
cally, of an oflScial approval by the American Government 
on the Burlingame Mission and its objects. Far more im- 
portant than as a treaty engagement, these supplementary 
articles were the adroit vehicle for the pronouncement of 
American policy not merely vis-a-vis China, but even more 
particularly with reference to the relations of the United 
States with the other foreign powers in China. This pro- 
nouncement, applied to the then immediate present, was 
the official opinion of the United States as to the revision 
of the British Treaty of Tientsin which was already a mat- 
ter of negotiations between Sir Rutherford Alcock in Peking 
and the Chinese Government. The Burlingame Treaty was 
the official American declaration against the so-called "gun- 
boat" policy of applying local pressure in China to secure 
what between sovereign nations would ordinarily be the 
subject of diplomatic action with the central government. 

Fortunately for the success of the Mission in England, it 
arrived in London about the time of most important 
changes in the British Government. On December 4, 1868, 
the first Gladstone ministry took office and Lord Clarendon 
was placed in the Foreign Office. The Palmerston foreign 
policy which had found its most complete expression in 
China in the Anglo-French War (1857-60) was to be re- 
placed by a policy reflecting the growing liberalism in Eng- 
lish politics, — a policy which had been clearly foreshad- 
owed in Peking by Sir Frederick Bruce five years earlier. 

Mr. Burlingame was able to secure from Lord Claren- 



ANSON BURLINGAME 387 

don, December 28, 1868, an official declaration which was 
far more practical and specific than the formal treaty stipu- 
lations of the American treaty.-^ In a letter from Lord 
Clarendon to Mr. Burlingame the former made the follow- 
ing statements: 

1. The Chinese Government is fully entitled to count upon the 
forbearance of the foreign nations, and the British Government has 
neither a desire nor intention to apply unfriendly pressure to China 
to induce her government to advance more rapidly in her intercourse 
with foreign nations than is consistent with safety and with due and 
reasonable regard for the feelings of her subjects. 

2. On the other hand, China must observe the treaties and protect 
British subjects within her empire. 

3. The British Government announces its preference rather for 
ah appeal to the central government than to local authorities for the 
redress of wrongs done to British subjects. It is for the interest of 
China that her central government be not only fully recognized but 
also established within the empire. 

4. The British agents in China have been instructed to act in 
the spirit and with the objects as explained above. 

Thus armed the Burlingame Mission moved on to Paris 
and the other European capitals but nowhere in Europe did 
it meet with the degree of success which had been attained 
in the United States and England. France was non-com- 
mittal, Bismarck was favorable, but vague ; the negotiations 
in St. Petersburg were left unfinished at the death of Bur- 
lingame. This failure of the Mission in Europe — if indeed 
it be just to describe as a failure an unfinished task which 
was terminated by a personal fatality — may be explained 
partially on grounds other than the existing political confu- 
sion on the Continent. The truth was that while Great 
Britain appeared willing to change her policy in China, yet 
this change came at a time when she was already securely 
established both commercially and politically in the Far 
East. The European powers, on the other hand, were being 
asked, before they had secured similar power and influence 
in China, to deny themselves the very methods which 
Great Britain, and in some degree the United States, had 
used so successfully. The character of the reception ac- 
corded to the Burlingame Mission on the Continent clearly 



388 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

foreshadowed the quarter from which the Chinese Empire 
might in the future expect serious dangers to both its sov- 
ereignty and its integrity. 

"In one way or another, however we may disguise it/' 
wrote Sir Rutherford Alcock,^^ "our position in China has 
been created by force — naked, physical force; and any in- 
teUigent policy to improve or maintain that position must 
still look to force in some form, latent or expressed, for the 
results." It was equally true that for other powers to 
achieve similar positions in China similar methods must be 
employed. To establish a solid basis for cooperation it 
would have been necessary for the Powers already lodged 
in China to surrender much that had been obtained in 1842, 
1858, and 1860. Such a surrender no power was willing to 
make. 

The success of the Burlingame Mission in the United 
States and England had two very definite immediate in- 
fluences in China: it prevented a revision of the British 
treaty in a manner satisfactory to the British merchants; 
it also encouraged the Government of China not merely to 
oppose more strongly than before any increased aggres- 
sions of the foreign powers but also to stiffen their opposi- 
tion to a full compliance with engagements to the powers 
which had already been extorted from them by the Anglo- 
French War of the preceding decade. It encouraged them 
to believe that now they might indulge with more impunity 
the thorough-going distrust and even hatred of the foreigner 
which Burlingame in his fervid eloquence had perhaps 
never fully measured and certainly had never set forth in 
either the United States or England. This immediate 
change of front on the part of the Chinese Government was 
bitterly resented by most of the foreigners in China, and 
Burlingame, no longer able to plead his case and unable to 
finish in China the work which he had commenced abroad, 
was blamed. But in thus blaming him, might not his 
critics also have been bestowing upon the first Chinese 
Envoy to the Western powers the signal honor of having 
been the agent to secure for China in her otherwise im- 



ANSON BURLINGAME 389 

potent struggle with the Western nations a truce without 
which the Empire would soon have been dissolved? Euro- 
pean colonial expansion, meeting with obstacles in the Far 
East, turned for a time to regions nearer home. 



BIBLIOGEAPHICAL NOTES 

1. The primary sources for Anson Burlingame and his work are: 

F. W. Williams : "Anson Burlingame and the First Chinese 
Mission" — a very sympathetic biography which is based on all 
the known sources of information; the volumes of Diplomatic 
Correspondence covering the period of his service in China, 
include practically every dispatch of any importance, as well as 
Seward's instructions; China Notes, Vol. 1, i.e., notes from 
the Chinese Legation to the Dept. of State, contain some 
valuable reports on the progress of the Chinese Mission in 
Europe. 

2. Williams : "Burlingame," pp. 1 ff . 

3. Dip. Corres., 1868, pp. 493-503. 

4. F. W. Seward: "Eeminiscences," pp. 375 ff, 378, 380-l._ 

5. There is no satisfactory account of Ward and Burgevine. The 

most complete story of their careers in China is a sketch on 
Ward in E. Alexander Powell's popularly written "Gentlemen 
Rovers." Powell uses sources of information not generally 
available, but does not state what they are. The general ten- 
dency of British historians, with the exception of Andrew 
Wilson's "The Ever- Victorious Army," is to minimize or ignore 
Ward and exalt Gordon. Wilson knew both Ward and Burge- 
vine personally and is an excellent authority. 

6. China Despatches, Vol. 20, Mar. 6, '62, Burlingame to Seward. 

(Dept. of State.) 

7. Wilson : "The Ever- Victorious Army," p. 91. 

8. Dip. Corres., 1863, p. 866. 

9. For. Relations, 1888, pp. 199 ff; S. Ex. Doc. 48:45-2. 

10. Dip. Corres., 1864, pp. 343 ff. 

11. Op. cit, 1864, p. 851. 

12. lUd., pp. 859 ff. 

13. lUd., p. 882. 

14. Op. cit., 1864, p. 430. 

15. Cordier : "Relations de la Chine," Vol. 1, p. 285. 

16. Williams : "Burlingame," p. 145. 

17. lUd., p. 149. 

18. Martin: "Cycle of Cathay," pp. 241, 293 ff. 

19. Dip. Corres., 1867, pp. 471, 483, 509. 

20. Op. cit., 1864, pp. 362 ff; Pompelly : "Across America and Asia." 

21. Williams: "Burlingame," pp. 148-9. 

22. Notes, China, Jan. 18, 1870, Burlingame to Fish. 

23. Dip. Corres., 1862, p. 833 ; 1863, p. 851 ; 1864, pp. 379, 419, 426 ; 

1866, pp. 489, 528; 1867, pp. 429, 466; 1868, pp. 547 ff. 



390 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

24. S. Ex. Doc. 58:28-2, pp. 5-14; Williams: "Burlingame," p. 149. 

25. Williams : "Burlingame," pp. 138-9. 

26. Martin: "Cycle of Cathay," pp. 221, 222; Dip. Corres., 1864, 

p. 332. 

27. See Morse, Vol. 2, chap. IX, for an excellent review of the atti- 

tude of the foreigners in China towards the Mission. 

28. Williams : "Burlingame" : chap. "The Clarendon Letter and 

British Policy," pp. 161 ff; Morse, Vol. 2, pp. 197 ff; Cordier, 
op. cit., pp. 295 ff. 

29. Michie: "The Englishman in China," Vol. 2, p. 221. 



CHAPTER XXI 

THE UNITED STATES AND JAPAN: 1858-1869 

The phase of American relations with Japan which be- 
gan with the signing of the treaties of 1858 came to natural 
end in 1869 with the beginning of the Meiji Era in Japan 
and the withdrawal of William E. Seward from the Ameri- 
can Department of State. Few generalizations as to policy 
are possible.^ 

American interests were represented in Japan by four 
different men. Early in 1859, shortly after his treaty of 
the preceding year had been approved by the Senate, 
Townsend Harris was raised to the newly created post of 
Minister Resident. Harris presented his resignation soon 
after the inauguration of the Lincoln administration and 
was relieved by his successor, Robert H. Pruyn of Albany, 
in April, 1862. Pruyn, who had been prominent in New 
York state politics and was a friend of Seward's, served 
three years, after which A. L. C. Portman, Secretary of the 
Legation, who had been Dutch interpreter for Commodore 
Perry, became Charge d'Ajfaires for one year. R. B. Van 
Valkenburgh, also. of New York, arrived in August, 1866, 
and retired in November, 1869. 

While such frequent changes in the service could not be 
otherwise than costly to American interests, and were par- 
ticularly unfortunate at the time of the retirement of 
Pruyn, who left at a most delicate and critical stage, it may 
be noted that the British diplomatic service was also fre- 
quently interrupted. Rutherford Alcock,^ after fourteen 
years in the British consular service in China, with the rank 
of consul general, was made the first British representative 
in Japan. He arrived in July, 1859, taking up residence in 
Yedo at the same time with Harris. He was absent on 

391 



392 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

leave from March, 1862, until March, 1864, having been 
in the interim made a Knight Commander of the Bath. 
Alcock was recalled abruptly a few months later, although 
he was subsequently vindicated and promoted to Peking, 
where he succeeded Sir Frederick Bruce. He was replaced 
by Harry S. Parkes,^ who also had had a long and far- 
famed career in the Chinese consular service. Parkes ar- 
rived in August, 1865, thus beginning a mission in Japan 
which extended over nearly twenty years. British policy, 
however, was directed step by step from London, and had a 
continuity and consistency which was lacking in American 
policy. Before the close of the American Civil War, the 
United States had yielded to England its position of priority 
in Japan. Seward, distracted and preoccupied by the Civil 
War, gave to American interests in Japan an astonishing 
amount of attention, and yet his advice to the American 
representatives was rarely helpful and of course the United 
States was able to give only nominal naval support to its 
ministers in Yedo. Steward's policy for Japan will be 
treated in the next chapter. American policy continued 
to be in Japan as it had been and was in China, the policy 
of Americans more than the policy of their government. 

The American Government held consistently to one 
principle without compromise: the achievements of Perry 
and Harris must not be lost; the Japanese must not be per- 
mitted to return to a policy of seclusion. It is in the appli- 
cation of this principle that we encounter difficulties in 
defining policies. The Americans swung between two 
courses. On the one hand it was of the utmost importance 
to cooperate with the other treaty powers, particularly with 
the British, French and Dutch, and on the other, it suited 
the American spirit as well as the exigencies of the time, 
to show towards the Japanese conciliation, moderation, and 
a spirit of compromise. These two courses were often op- 
posed to each other, for moderation was not a characteristic l< 
of the British in Japan, and they dominated the situation. ' 

Cooperation with the other treaty powers, even when it 
required the Americans to join in a use of force such as 



THE UNITED STATES AND JAPAN: 1858-1869 393 

had never characterized the pohcy in China, and never again 
appeared in Japan, was rendered the more easy by the fact 
that the Japanese Empire was then passing through a mo- 
mentous struggle of clan feuds and of rival rulers in which 
there was always one faction definitely committed to the 
expulsion of the foreigners and to a return to seclusion. 
Into the details of this most intricate and involved domestic 
Japanese conflict it is impossible for us to go, and yet 
without a knowledge of these details it is often difficult to 
estimate correctly the courses proposed and the actions 
taken by the foreigners. Briefly the situation was as 
follows : 

Anti-foreign Agitation 

The signing of the treaties (1854-8) stirred the opposi- 
tion of a large section of the articulate public opinion of 
the Empire which was sincerely opposed to the abandon- 
ment of the policy of seclusion, and it was seized upon by 
powerful daimyos (feudal lords) who had no strong anti- 
foreign convictions but who were eager to find in the acts 
of the Shogun's government an object of criticism by which 
the Takugawa regime might be weakened and overthrown.* 
The anti-foreign and the anti-Shogun forces tended to 
coalesce into a single body demanding reform in Japanese 
affairs. The foreign relations of the Empire were retired to 
a secondary place in the public interest, and yet a by-prod- 
uct of the domestic struggle was a stubborn and unreasoning 
opposition to the foreigners, coupled with demands for their 
expulsion. Conciliation and isolated action were weak staffs 
for the foreigners to lean upon in the face of this opposition 
which was so blind, so indirect, and so irresponsible. A 
cooperative policy with force to back it up was absolutely 
essential and would have been necessary for the Americans 
had there been no Civil War to create a political reason for 
cultivating harmony with foreign powers. 

* The Shogun (Tycoon, i.e., Great Prince) was theoretically an offlcer of the 
Imperial Court of Kioto and was appointed by the Emperor to repress disturb- 
ances and maintain order. Practically the office carried with it complete control 
of the Emperor whom the Shogun set up and deposed at will, and also pos- 
sessed important economic and commercial privileges not equally enjoyed by the 
less important princes. 



394 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

The course of American policy may best be reviewed, 
perhaps, by noting the more important steps which were 
taken, explaining in each case the underlying domestic sit- 
uation in Japan, and then comparing the course of the 
Americans with that of the other foreigners. 

Although the provision in the Harris Treaty stipulating 
that ratifications should be exchanged in Washington within 
one year had been inserted at the request of the Japanese, 
the Tycoon's officers were soon forced to seek delay for this 
visit to the United States.* Notwithstanding the represen- 
tation of Lord Hotta, the Shogun's emissary to the Mikado, 
that the resumption of international relations might be 
made the first step in securing for Japan the ''hegemony 
over all nations" which, he stated, ''is doubtless in conform- 
ity with the will of Heaven," ^ the throne withheld approval 
of the treaties. The Shogun was thus placed in the position 
of having violated a fundamental law of the Empire, and for 
a mission to go abroad would be to incur the death penalty. 
The Tycoon pleaded for delay in sending the embassy to the 
United States and Harris sympathetically approved, stipu- 
lating, however, that in the interim no other embassy was to 
depart from Japan. While the Japanese regarded all 
treaties in the light of "necessary evils," wrote Harris to 
Seward, "there is no doubt that the Japanese regard us in a 
more friendly light than any of the other powers with whom 
they have come in contact." 

The embassy actually sailed February, 1860, in the U. 
S. S. Powhatan, which had been placed at its disposal by 
request of the Japanese. Congress appropriated $50,000 
for the entertainment of the guests, who were received and 
feted with great ceremony. After seven weeks of amazing 
sight-seeing the embassy was returned directly to Japan in 
the U. S. S. Niagara. 

Meanwhile affairs in Japan were becoming difficult alike 
for the Shogun's government and for the foreigners. Harris 
had even intimated to the Yedo officials that the powers 
might find it necessary to turn to the Mikado if the Shogun 
did not show a greater desire to fulfill the stipulations of the 



THE UNITED STATES AND JAPAN: 1858-1869 395 

treaty. It soon became evident, however, that the Sho- 
gun's position was not simple. He did not possess the power 
to enforce order or to protect the foreigners. The foreigners 
themselves had given great offense. The treaties had left 
the currency question in an unsatisfactory condition. The 
Japanese Government had for centuries maintained the 
ratio between silver and gold at about 5 to 1. The new 
treaties compelled the Japanese to accept foreign silver at 
the foreign valuation. The foreigners were not slow to see 
the avenue of profit thus opened to them. They could 
bring their foreign silver to Japan, exchange it for Japa- 
nese silver at par, and with the latter buy Japanese gold 
at the rate of 5 or 6 to 1, and then export the gold thus 
cheaply purchased to China, where it could be disposed of 
according to the current rates of international exchange. 
Nearly everyone, ministers, consuls, and naval officers, as 
well as merchants, joined in these speculations which began 
rapidly to drain the Empire of its gold. The scandal was 
notorious and became a subject of investigation by Parlia- 
ment. Great Britain sought the cooperation of the United 
States in correcting the evil and Secretary of State Cass 
directed Harris to comply with the British request, but be- 
fore the matter was adjusted much ill will had been 
generated.^ 

Less easily defined, yet equally productive of evil, was 
the personal conduct of the foreigners towards the Japa- 
nese. Most of the foreigners came to Japan from China 
and brought with them an impudence and arrogance which, 
while as irritating to Chinese as to Japanese, created more 
disorder in Japan because of the presence of so many skillful 
samurai swordsmen and retainers. The Japanese were not 
only inclined but were well prepared to meet insult with 
retaliation. Sometimes this revenge was executed directly 
upon the guilty party, but more often it took the form of 
hostility to all foreigners, and within two years after the 
opening of Yokohama the foreigners were actually im- 
perilled by multitudes of assassins seeking either revenge or 
an opportunity to stir up trouble which might eventuate 



396 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

in the expulsion of the foreigners from the Empire. The 
Tokugawa government at Yedo, unsupported by the Kioto 
government, and strongly opposed in domestic affairs by 
many powerful princes, was quite unable to control the 
situation. 

Early in January, 1861, Heusken, the interpreter of the 
American Legation, while returning home after dark, was 
cut down in the streets of Yedo and expired within a few 
hours.'^ The murder of Heusken was the seventh assassi- 
nation of foreigners within eighteen months and greatly 
excited the foreign community. Harris, while greatly 
shocked, took the position that his interpreter had been 
foolhardy in thus exposing himself to attack in the dark- 
ness. Harris himself had been careful, even at the expense 
of a great deal of personal liberty, to avoid giving the 
sworded gentry such opportunities as they so much de- 
sired, but such a surrender of rights did not suit the dignity 
of many other foreigners. Rutherford Alcock,^ with the 
French, Dutch and Prussian representatives retired from 
Yedo, as a result of the murder of the American inter- 
preter, demanding that the government give satisfactory 
guarantees of security to life and property before they 
would return. Harris not only remained in Yedo, but even 
went so far as to request from his government discretion- 
ary powers to waive the right granted by treaty for for- 
eigners to reside in Yedo after January 1, 1862. 

The murder of Heusken and this request for delay in 
opening Yedo to residence were the first matters presented 
to Seward from Japan after he became Secretary of State. 
His attitude will be considered subsequently. SuSice it to 
state here that Harris's advice was accepted and reparation 
for the murder of Heusken was settled by the payment of 
$10,000 to the interpreter's mother. The contrast between 
the policy of Harris and that of the British representatives 
is illustrated not only in the withdrawal of Alcock for a time 
from Yedo, but also by the size of the indemnities required 
by the British Government for contemporaneous assassina- 
tions of British subjects. These ranged from $10,000 for 



THE UNITED STATES AND JAPAN: 1858-1869 397 

wounding two members of the British Legation a few 
months later, to £110,000 gold for the murder of Richard- 
son (September 14, 1862). Alcock's proposed remedy for 
assassination was $20,000 to $50,000 indemnity for every 
foreigner killed. 

Harris and Alcock were irreconcilable in temperament, 
previous training, and in their attitude towards the Japa- 
nese. It is difficult to see how a policy of cooperation could 
have been carried out in Yedo had Harris remained as 
American minister. It also seems probable that had Harris 
continued in Japan, the course of American pohcy for the 
following five years would have been quite different. 

One of the first requests presented to Pruyn after his 
arrival in 1862 was that the Japanese might exercise their 
treaty right to purchase three war steamers in the United 
States. Although the Japanese were obviously preparing 
not merely for possible civil war but also to defend them- 
selves against the steadily increasing pressure of Great 
Britain and the other treaty powers, Pruyn approved of the 
request, and himself became the commercial agent for the 
Japanese Government in the transaction,* a highly irregular 
proceeding.^ 

By pressing so hard upon the Tycoon for the execution 
of the treaties the British Government, unknowingly, was 
really playing into the hands of those within the Empire 
who were seeking to weaken the Yedo government. The 
Shogun officials clearly saw the possibility of civil war early 
in 1863, and approached the American minister with an in- 
quiry as to how the United States would regard such a 
conflict. Pruyn replied cautiously that in a conflict between 
supposedly anti-foreign forces and the government of the 
Shogun with which the treaties had been made, he believed 
that, if requested, all the treaty powers "would be justified" 
by self-defense in aiding the Shogun.^ ^ Further study and 
reflection, however, led Mr. Pruyn to modify this opinion 
and less than six months later (June 27, 1863), he recom- 

*Gideon Welles, who subsequently became familiar with the details of the 
way in which this contract was executed in the United States, sharply criti- 
cized the proceedings.^" 



398 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

mended to Seward a joint naval demonstration of the 
treaty powers, such as Seward had proposed two years be- 
fore, to compel the Mikado to ratify the treaties. Seward 
was willing to act on this suggestion but at that time the 
Lord John Russell did not favor it. 

Meanwhile the Throne had issued a number of decrees 
ordering either the complete expulsion of the foreigners or 
the closing of all ports save those of Nagasaki and Hako- 
date. Many efforts had been made to induce Pruyn to re- 
tire from Yedo and in May, 1863, the legation was burned. 
Six weeks later an American vessel, the Pembroke, was 
fired on in the Straits of Shimoneseki by the forces of the 
Prince of Choshiu and within a few days a French and a 
Dutch vessel also were fired on. This prince had taken 
literally the Mikado's orders to expel the barbarians. The 
Yedo officials, under orders from Kioto, formally notified the 
foreign representatives that the port of Yokohama was to be 
closed to trade. At the same time the British fleet in Jap- 
anese waters, under Admiral Kuper, now numbering ten 
vessels, was instructed to proceed to Kagoshima on the 
island of Kiushiu to demand reparations directly from the 
Prince of Satsuma for the murder of Richardson, who had 
been cut down by the express orders of one of the Satsuma 
daimyos. In the midst of all this confusion one fact stood 
out clearly: the foreigners to maintain their place in Japan 
must not only defend themselves but must retaliate. The 
Yedo government was quite powerless to control many pow- 
erful princes, or to carry out the treaties, and was ap- 
parently passing into a subordination to Kioto such as had 
not been known in Japan since the establishment of the 
Shogunate. 

July, 1863, was a tumultuous month in western Japan. 
Commander McDougal in the U. S. S. Wyoming, which had 
fortunately appeared at Yokohama in the course of a hunt 
for the Alabama, proceeded to the Straits of Shimoneseki 
with the intention of capturing the offending Choshiu war 
vessels and presenting them to the ShoguD, but when the 
Choshiu shore batteries opened fire upon the Wyoming, 



THE UNITED STATES AND JAPAN: 1858-1869 399 

McDougal engaged them in battle, and while no effort 
was made to capture the batteries, a war steamer and a brig 
were sunk.^- A few days later the French admiral, Jaures, 
landed a small force at the same spot, destroyed one of the 
batteries, and burned a village. Meanwhile Admiral Kuper 
proceeded to Kagoshima, a Satsuma city, and commenced 
a bombardment which resulted in the destruction of most 
of the city by fire. The effect of these expeditions, coupled 
with certain concurrent developments of domestic politics, 
was to reduce the opposition of the western clans to for- 
eign intercourse and, for a time, to strengthen the Tycoon. 

Acting upon emphatic and very explicit instructions 
from Seward, Pruyn demanded of the Yedo government 
the settlement of all American claims. Seward had based 
his instructions on the conclusion that ''the Government of 
Japan had failed to keep its faith solemnly pledged by 
treaty," ^^ and intimated that the United States could not 
maintain its dignity or self-respect if it were to permit 
Japan to evade the payment of the modest American claims 
while the other powers were making very much greater de- 
mands. Seward threatened to support the demand with an 
additional naval force. Pruyn asked for a total of $32,000 
—$10,000 for the burning of the legation, $20,000 for as- 
saults on Americans at Yokohama, and $2,000 for an Ameri- 
can citizen who had been deported from the Bonin Islands 
by the Japanese.^'* Payment for the Pembroke claim, 
$10,000, had already been made. When the Japanese de- 
clined to meet the demands, Pruyn reminded them that the 
United States had never consented to the delay in the 
opening of Hiogo and Niigata for which discretionary powers 
had been given to Harris, and that if the claims were not 
paid, he would feel at liberty to declare that these ports 
were open, under the stipulations of the American treaty. 

Pruyn relented slightly in the urgency of his demands 
which had been presented in the form of an ultimatum, 
but a few months later he went to Yedo in the U. S. S. 
Jamestown, landed with a guard of sixty-five sailors and 
marines, and secured a settlement. In this adjustment he 



400 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

proposed that the claims of the Americans at Yokohama 
should be submitted to the Emperor of Russia for arbitra- 
tion, but the Japanese authorities preferred to settle them 
directly. 

An important by-product of the conferences over the 
American ultimatum had been the securing of a convention 
by which the Japanese agreed to lower from 20 per cent to 
5 per cent the import duty on machines and machinery, 
iron in pigs and bars, sheet iron and iron ware, tin plates, 
sugar, glass, clocks, watches, wines and liquors.^ ^ A few 
days later the Japanese voluntarily reduced to 6 per cent 
the duties on several other classes of importation. 

Sir Rutherford Alcock returned to Yedo in March, 1864. 
His government, which had been severely criticized in Par- 
liament for the burning of Kagoshima, had provided him 
with instructions of moderation. Alcock, however, became 
convinced that the thinly concealed object of the Japanese 
Government was to expel the foreigner, and he proposed 
to "make war for the purpose of forestalling war." ^*^ Thus 
he would prevent the closing of the port of Yokohama and 
at the same time he would open the Inland Sea to navi- 
gation and force the Japanese Government to change its 
entire policy towards the foreigners. The plan met with the 
approval of the other foreign representatives and was car- 
ried out in a joint naval expedition to the Straits of Shi- 
moneseki in the latter part of August, 1864. The com- 
bined fleet consisted of nine British, four Dutch, three 
French and one American, vessels. The American vessel 
was a rented merchant steamer of light draught equipped 
with a few guns and sailors from the Jamestown, which, 
being a sailing vessel, was of no use to the fleet. The bom- 
bardment and assault occupied four days and as a result the 
Prince of Nagato agreed to the opening of the Straits, and 
also to pay a ransom for the city, which the allied forces 
had refrained from destroying.^''' The expedition had been 
undertaken with at least the tacit approval of the Yedo gov- 
ernment, which had experienced the most determined oppo- 
sition from this Prince. 



THE UNITED STATES AND JAPAN: 1858-1869 401 

The fleet then returned to Yokohama and the diploma- 
tists took up the task of settlement with the government. 
The Yedo officials agreed (September 23) to abrogate the 
order closing the port of Yokohama, and also engaged to 
seek from the Mikado an approval of the treaties. A few 
days later the Tycoon agreed to assume an indemnity of 
$3,000,000 in six quarterly instalments to pay the expenses 
of the Shimoneseki expedition. ^^ The method of division 
of the sum was left to the determination of the powers, and 
it was stipulated that the payment would be remitted in 
case the Japanese should open to trade some port in the 
Inland Sea. 

The Shimoneseki expedition was approved by President 
Lincoln and Secretary Seward/^ and although it had been 
undertaken in violation of instructions then on their way 
from Lord Russell to Alcock, its complete success was suffi- 
cient to transmute a reprimand and recall for Alcock into 
a promotion to Peking.-^ Viewed in the light of history, 
particularly Japanese domestic history, there is little to 
bring forward in defense of the expedition. It was cer- 
tainly a marked departure from traditional American pol- 
icy both in its cooperative aspects and in its confessed pur- 
pose to intervene in the domestic conflict of the Japanese 
Empire. It was more straightforward than Tattnall's par- 
ticipation in the affair at Taku in 1859, and yet it was the 
kind of action which both the Pierce and Buchanan ad- 
ministrations had decHned to sanction in China. It had 
little to commend it but its success. The Shimoneseki ex- 
pedition had broken the back of the anti-foreign movement 
in Japan. 

Convention of 1866 

Pruyn retired from Japan in April, 1865, leaving Port- 
man as Charge. A few months later Harry Parkes arrived 
to supersede Alcock. From the time of his arrival British 
influence entirely dominated the foreign relations of Japan. 
Parkes had entered the British service in China as a mere 
boy and had been reared in the traditions of the British 



402 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

merchants of the forties and fifties. His career had been 
much honored by those who advocated with Lord Palmer- 
ston that in deahng with the Chinese people the ordinary- 
rules of morality did not apply. Lord Elgin had commended 
him. By others, by most Americans probably, he was re- 
garded as the prime evil genius in the relations between the 
foreigners and the Asiatics. It was Parkes' rashness which 
had precipitated the affair of the lorcha Arrow at Canton in 
1856, and his services in the ensuing war had on several occa- 
sions been of an inflammatory sort. Added to his aggres- 
siveness in every effort which looked towards the extension 
or protection of British trade was the fact that he had a 
temper which he often thought it not worth while to con- 
trol.^^ The difference between Parkes in Yedo and Sir Fred- 
erick Bruce in Peking was as the difference between the 
poles. 

Upon arrival Parkes immediately assumed the initia- 
tive and the leadership among the foreign representatives. 
Although he had received rather general instructions, and 
although Lord John Russell had always inclined towards a 
course of moderation, Parkes, as an American historian has 
aptly said, ''knew what his government desired, and he pro- 
ceeded to accomplish it." ^^ The Shogun's government, un- 
able to open the desired port in the Inland Sea, had elected 
to pay the Shimoneseki indemnity, but after the first instal- 
ment, found itself financially embarrassed and requested de- 
lay in the other payments. This request provided Parkes 
with the desired opportunity. He secured the assent of 
the other foreign representatives to a proposal which called 
for the transference of the negotiations from Yedo to 
Osaka, accompanied by a naval demonstration. This ex- 
pedition, in which Charge Portman represented the United 
States in a British war vessel, arrived at Osaka early in 
November, 1865.-^ Parkes' letter to the Japanese authori- 
ties, which he took the trouble to remind them was dated 
from the admiral's flag-ship, demanded a "prompt and sat- 
isfactory settlement." The Japanese were given the choice 
between punctual payment of the indemnity or the imme- 



THE UNITED STATES AND JAPAN: 1858-1869 403 

diate opening of Hiogo and Osaka, the formal consent of 
the Mikado to the treaties, and "the regularization of the 
tariff on a basis of five per cent." In case the Japanese 
chose the second alternative, the treaty powers would gra- 
ciously remit $2,000,000 of the indemnity. When the Jap- 
anese delayed their answer and appeared to be preparing to 
defy the foreign representatives, the latter sent identic 
notes containing a threat "to act as we may judge con- 
venient." A Japanese minister came to the flag-ship Sep- 
tember 24 and announced to Parkes that the Mikado had 
ratified the treaties, that the Shogun would consent to the 
revision of the tariff, but that rather than open the port be- 
fore the appointed time, the government preferred to pay 
the full remaining indemnity. On the part of the foreigners 
the visit to Osaka was a brutal proceeding, the method of 
which the Japanese in later years found many opportuni- 
ties to imitate in dealings with Korea and China. 

The tariff settlement with the Japanese Government 
was embodied in a convention which was signed in Yedo 
June 25, 1866. This convention is notable in American pol- 
icy for several reasons. It, and the preceding convention of 
1864, which had been signed by Pruyn jointly with the Brit- 
ish, French and Dutch representatives, are among the very 
few, if not the only instances in the nineteenth century in 
which the United States entered into a joint treaty. While 
it was not altogether exceptional for the United States to 
make similar treaties, concurrently with other powers, as in 
China in 1858, it marked a wide departure from traditional 
policy for the American Government to sign a treaty jointly 
with other nations. In 1857 William B. Reed had been 
specifically instructed not to make such a treaty. The con- 
vention was also remarkable for the fact that it stated an 
untruth, viz., that the foreign representatives had "received 
from their respective governments identical instructions for 
the modification of the tariff." Portman had received no 
such instructions. The treaty was, however, duly ratified by 
the American Government the following year. In the third 
place, the proposed "regularization" of the tariff took the 



404 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

form of the China treaties of 1858 in that the duties were 
made specific and the precise amounts estimated on ad va- 
lorem basis of five per cent. The tariff was not terminable 
at a definite date, but like both the Chinese and Japanese 
treaties of 1858 was merely "subject to revision" on the 
first day of July, 1872. The effect of this provision was to 
place Japan entirely within the power of the united foreign 
nations, or of any one of them which would not consent 
to revision, notwithstanding the fact that the increasing 
prices of many articles of trade had the effect of lowering 
the duty rate, estimated on an ad valorem basis, until in 
later years the duties received amounted to little more than 
the cost of collection. Judged by any standard of foreign 
policy, the convention of 1866 with Japan may be regarded 
as one of the most thoroughly un-American treaties ever 
ratified by the American Government. 

The American policy of cooperation continued after the 
American Civil War was over, and the most urgent reasons 
for its practice had disappeared. Civil war broke out in 
Japan at the beginning of 1868 and Van Valkenburgh joined 
with the other foreign representatives in the approval of a 
joint occupation of the approaches to Yokohama by the 
combined naval forces.^^ The powers declared their neu- 
trality in the domestic conflict. This had the effect of in- 
fluencing the Mikado, who had taken over the powers of the 
Shogun at the latter's request, February 3, 1868, to seek the 
good will of the foreign powers. The American minister 
was received in audience by the Mikado at Yedo, January 
3, 1869, and a month later, the Restoration having become 
an accomplished fact, Van Valkenburgh, in concert with 
the other ministers, withdrew the notice of neutrality. The 
American authorities then turned over to the Japanese 
Government a war steamer which the Shogun had previously 
purchased in the United States but which on its arrival at 
Yokohama had been retained by the American authorities 
in order that it might not be used by the Shogun's party to 
oppose the Restoration.^^ 

In summary of this most complicated period we may 



THE UNITED STATES AND JAPAN: 1858-1869 405 

note two facts: just as in China at the revision of the 
treaties in 1858, the American Government had signally 
failed while sustaining a cooperative policy with the other 
foreign powers, to exert upon the combined action of the 
powers any notable influence. Cooperation had meant, after 
the departure of Townsend Harris, not only British leader- 
ship but, under Parkes, British dictation. On the other 
hand, as in China, the United States had come out of the 
contest with Japan with more good will from the Japanese 
people than was enjoyed by any other foreign power. It is 
doubtful whether any Japanese or any Americans in 1869 
realized how the joint Convention of 1866 could be used 
to obstruct Japanese fiscal and industrial development. 
American policy was clear: the United States no t only 
desired no exclusive advantages, but, unlike the other 
powers, was as thoroughly committed to siipporting and 
sustaining Japan in its efforts to become a strong nation, just 
as it was committed to a similar course in China. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

1. The primary American sources for this period are: Japan In- 

structions, Vol. 1, and Japan Despatches, Vols. I-XI. (The 
reports for the years 1861-8 in "Diplomatic Correspondence" 
are very complete. Treat's "Early Diplomatic Relations be- 
tween the United States and Japan, 1858-65," a most valuable 
intensive study, makes generous ixse of the papers of R. B. 
Pruyn which are, however, usually practically identical with 
the Pruyn dispatches in the Dept. of State. Treat also makes 
use of a large number of translations from Japanese sources 
some of which are unavailable in any except the best stocked 
American libraries. Gubbins's "Progress of Japan" presents 
the Japanese sources very fully. Two scholarly studies and 
interpretations by Japanese can be recommended — ISTitobe's 
''Intercourse between the United States and Japan" (Johns 
Hopkins Univ. Studies in Hist, and Pol. Sci., extra Vol. 9, 
1891), and Hishida's "International Position of Japan as a 
Great Power" (Columbia Univ. Studies in Hist. Economics 
and Public Law, Vol. 24, No. 3, 1905). 

2. Alcock's "The Capital of the Tycoon, a Narrative of Three Years' 

Residence in Japan," 2 vols., makes a very full record of 
Alcock's service in Japan before 1862 ; see also Michie ; "The 
Englishman in China." 

3. Dickens and Lane-Poole: "Life of Sir Henry Parkes"; Sir 



406 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

Ernest Satow's "A Diplomat in Japan," throws some valuable 
side-lights on Parkes' early career in Japan. 

4. S. Ex. Doc. 25 :36-l. 

5. Treat: "Early Diplomatic Relations," pp. 99-100. 

6. Townsend Harris' Journal, Pt. II, p. 101 (Lib. of Cong.) ; Japan 

Instructions, Vol. 1, Apr. 2, 1860, Cass to Harris; see also 
Satow's "A Diplomat in Japan." 

7. Japan Dispatches, Vol. 5, Jan. 22, Feb. 13, '61 ; Dip. Corres., 1862, 

pp. 795 ff. 

8. Alcock : "The Capital of the Tycoon," Vol. 2, chaps. 24, 25. 

9. S. Ex. Doc. 33:37-3. 

10. Diary of Gideon Welles, Vol. II, pp. 188-92, 561. 

11. Dip. Corres., 1863, p. 982. 

12. Ihid., pp. 1040 fi. 

13. Hid., p. 1057. 

14. Hid., 1864, pp. 466 ff. 

15. Ihid., 1864, p. 479. 

16. Parliamentary Papers, 1865, Comm. 57, pp. 18-36, cited by 

Treat, p. 324. 

17. Dip. Corres., 1864, pp. 553 ff. 

18. lUd., p. 578. 

19. Hid. (1865), p. 229. 

20. Treat : p. 373, citing British sources. 

21. See Morse, Vol. 1, pp. 422 ff, for an estimate of Parkes. 
22 Treat ■ x> 395 

23! Dip. Corres., 1865, p. 276, 1866, p. 191. 

24. Japan Dispatches, Vol. 9, Apr. 3, 1868, Van Valkenburgh to 

Seward. 

25. Dip. Corres., 1868, p. 730. 



CHAPTER XXII 

SEWARD'S FAE EASTERN POLICY 

By 1861, by a process of negation and opportunism as 
well as by foresight and design, the American Government 
had acquired a fairly definite Far Eastern Policy. This pol- 
icy had grown out of certain precedents and decisions and 
was incorporated in two treaties — one with China and an- 
other with Japan. The foundation of this policy was ''most- 
favored-nation" treatment, equivalent to what is now called 
the "open-door" policy. Above this lay the decision, many 
times repeated, not to acquire any territorial possessions or 
protectorates in Asia or the Pacific Ocean. Deduced from 
the necessities of the most-favored-nation policy was the 
decision to "sustain China" and, by inference, to sustain 
Japan, thus placing the United States in opposition to any 
movement on the part of Western powers to injure the 
territorial integrity or the political sovereignty of Asiatic 
states. The United States desired that China and Japan 
become sufficiently strong to rnaintain their own open doors. 
Furthermore, the American Government had been commit- 
ted by the Pierce and Buchanan administrations to coopera- 
tion with the other treaty powers in all peaceful measures to 
secure the execution of the treaties and the protection of 
foreign interests. On the other hand, the United States had 
declined to enter an alliance with Great Britain and France, 
and Mr. Reed had been instructed to avoid any joint treaty 
with China. Upon these foundations Seward had to build 
in the tempestuous years 1861-9. 

Seward entered the Department of State with large and 
positive convictions on the nature and the future of Ameri- 
can relations with Asia. This is evident from his previous 
record in the Senate. More than most men of his day his 

407 



408 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

face was turned towards the West. As to the future expan- 
sion of the American people to the Pacific Coast he was 
firmly optimistic. He was a hearty supporter of every 
movement to establish American foreign trade on a firmer 
basis. "The nation," he said, "must command the empire 
of the seas, which alone is real empire." This empire, it 
seemed to him, must include the Pacific as well as the At- 
lantic. Indeed he foresaw the day when the Atlantic inter- 
ests of the United States would "relatively sink in impor- 
tance, while the Pacific Ocean, its shores, its islands, and 
the vast regions beyond" would become the "chief theatre 
of events in the world's great hereafter." This famous as- 
sertion, made in 1852 while the Japan Expedition was in 
preparation, was no isolated flight of oratory. Seward had 
a very definite idea as to the function of the American 
people in the commerce of the Pacific Ocean. Foreign 
trade, he thought, was to replace military conquest and to 
become the vehicle for a commerce of ideas. The great 
American contribution to the world, it seemed to him, was 
political theory. Just as the Atlantic states through their 
commercial, social and political sympathies were steadily 
renovating the governments and social constitutions of 
Europe and Africa, so "the Pacific states must necessarily 
perform the same sublime and beneficent functions in Asia." 
Seward appears to have expected that Asia thus enriched 
from America would repay the debt in gratitude. He said, 
while Perry was in the East, "Certainly no one expects the 
nations of Asia to be awakened by any other influence than 
our own from the lethargy into which they sunk nearly three 
thousand years ago. If they could be roused and invigor- 
ated now, would they spare their European oppressors and 
spite their American benefactors?" 

r Seward was so convinced of the value of the Pacific 

I Coast to the United States that he would, notwithstanding 

his convictions on the subject of slavery, vote to receive 

\ California as a state even though it were to become slave 

territory. He believed in the Japan Expedition, expressing 

the conviction that the proper question for the Senate to ask 



SEWARD'S FAR EASTERN POLICY 409 

was not why it had been sent, but why it had not been sent I 
before. He urged the completion of surveys of the Pacific \ 
Ocean; he favored the encouragement of Chinese immigra- 
tion to Cahfornia; and among the projects to which he lent 
persistent and energetic leadership, were the construction 
of a transcontinental railroad and the inauguration of a line 
of mail steamers from San Francisco via the Sandwich 
Islands to Japan and China. ^ He also gave approval and 
support to the proposal to connect America with Asia by 
means of a telegraph line through Alaska, across the Aleu- 
tian Islands and down the coast of Asia to the mouth of the 
Amur.^ Lincoln could not have chosen from among the 
conspicuous leaders of the day a secretary of state who 
would bring to the Far Eastern question more previous 
thought and conviction. 

During Seward's term of service the problem of com- 
munications between Washington and the Far East, which 
had been almost a determining factor in the previous poli- 
cies, was partially solved. The opening of the transconti- 
nental telegraph in 1862 and the increase in the frequency 
of trans-Pacific travel brought Japan within a month of 
Washington, while a similar development of transportation 
and telegraphy from Hongkong to England, shortened to 
some degree the distance from China westward. However, 
during the winter months the Chinese capital was ice- and 
snow-bound, receiving its mail only by courier service from 
Shanghai. The American representatives in China, and to 
a less extent in Japan, must still exercise broad discretionary 
powers and therefore had the control of American policy 
largely in their own hands. As an offset to better communi- 
cations came the Civil War, which so distracted the Ameri- 
can Government as to leave little time for the considera- 
tion of Far Eastern policy. Seward, under different condi- 
tions, would probably have shown from the outset much 
initiative in dealing with the East, but as it was, his hands 
were tied. Nevertheless he found it possible in the course 
of eight years to bring both Alaska and Korea within the 
range of Far Eastern policy, and also to modify in a marked 



410 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

degree many of the precedents of his office. At the risk of 
some confusion we have already examined the contributions 
of Burhngame and Harris ; let us now retraverse the ground 
and note the policies of Seward. 

Seward, Burlingame and China 

About Seward and China little need be said. Burlingame 
required few suggestions or instructions. He appeared in 
China in the calm which followed the storm. It was a 
period especially favorable for constructive work such as 
must follow destructive war. Notwithstanding his enthu- 
siasm and amiability, Burlingame was a masterful per- 
sonality, sure to dominate any situation. He dominated 
Peking while he was there, and in like measure he domi- 
nated American policy in China. Seward wisely permitted 
Burlingame to have his way; there were between them no 
conflicts, nor even differences of opinion. Even the cus- 
tomary long letter of instructions usually given to a new 
minister was omitted.^ Seward's part in Chinese policy was 
limited to approval of Burlingame; the Secretary of State 
initiated nothing except the immigration section of the 
Treaty of 1868.* 

Some months after Burlingame's arrival in China 
(March 6, 1862), Seward took occasion, while approving the 
minister's course in the closing contests of the Taiping Re- 
bellion, to urge him to "consult and cooperate" with the 
other representatives. The instruction was hardly neces- 
sary, for the policy was already in operation and Burlingame 
was the sort of man who could work no other way.* Shortly 
after the close of the Civil War Seward summarized his Chi- 
nese policy (August 14, 1865) as follows: 

"The Government of the United States is not disposed to be tech- 
nical or exacting in its intercourse with the Chinese Government, 
but will deal with it in entire frankness, cordiality and friendship. 

* The so-called Burlingame Treaty (1868) might more properly be called the 
Seward Treaty, for Seward, rather than Burlingame, appears to have espe- 
cially desired it and Seward wrote it. It was really an immigration treaty to 
which were attached some declarations of foreign policy. As a part of Seward's 
policy it will be treated in Chapter XXVIII. 



SEWARD'S FAR EASTERN POLICY 411 

The United States desires neither to interfere with the distinct and 
ancient habits and customs of the Chinese people, nor to embarrass 
the members of the foreign board in their difficult and responsible 
task." ' 

While always insistent that American life and prop- 
erty must be protected, Seward was careful to avoid any- 
thing which looked towards the disregard of Chinese rights. 
He sustained the decision of S. Wells Williams in 1866 that 
the treaty of 1858 clearly prohibited the foreigners from 
sending steamers through the inland waterways, thus plac- 
ing himself in opposition to the Shanghai merchants who 
were making a vigorous effort to break down the treaties.^ 
He expressed himself very clearly as opposed to the abuse of 
the American flag, the use of which was being sold by 
American merchants to Chinese lorcha and junk owners.'^ 
When the American bark Rover was wrecked off the coast of 
Formosa in 1867, and the crew murdered by aborigines of 
the island, Seward ordered a thorough investigation and 
instructed Dr. Williams to urge the Chinese Government to 
occupy the ports and shores of Formosa more effectively, 
but at the same time he ordered it made clear to China that 
the United States in no case desired to "seize or hold posses- 
sion" of any part of Formosa.^ Rear Admiral Bell con- 
ducted a punitive expedition against the aborigines with the 
U. S. S.S. Hartford and Wyoming. With a landing party of 
181 he advanced on the uncivilized people at the south 
end of Formosa on June 13, 1867. The savages were pur- 
sued into the hills where they frequently led the American 
force into ambush. The American casualties were one 
death and fourteen cases of sun-stroke. This expedition, an 
application in a measure of the "gun-boat policy" which 
Burlingame was so anxious to avoid, was undertaken by 
order of the Navy Department, yet no doubt with Seward's 
approval. The expedition was the precedent upon which 
the Japanese relied in 1874 to justify their more ambitious 
and inclusive attack upon the island.^ 

When Seward visited China in 1870 he took occasion to 
defend and justify American policy to one of his country- 



412 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

men who was very critical of its weakness. Seward reviewed 
the difficulties of the Civil War and examined one by one 
the alleged deficiencies of American influence in the Em- 
pire and remarked: "I think we are obliged to conclude 
from all these premises that a policy of justice, moderation 
and friendship is the only one that we have had a choice to 
pursue, and that it has been as wise as it has been unavoid- 
able." He concluded: "The United States cannot be an 
aggressive nation — least of all against China." ^^ 

Coercion in Japan 

Seward's policy in Japan was of a somewhat different 
nature. It was based on the assumption that the Japanese 
Government was seeking to evade the fulfillment of its ob- 
ligations under the treaties, and that the foreigners were in 
grave danger of being expelled from some or all of the open 
ports. Seward was also under the impression that the do- 
mestic confiict in Japan was a clean-cut contest between 
the liberal forces under the leadership of the Tycoon and 
the reactionary and anti-foreign forces back of the Mikado. 
These assumptions as we have seen were quite inaccurate. 
The Takugawa government was evading the requirements 
of the treaties at least in part because it was utterly power- 
less to carry them out. The foreigners were probably not 
in such imminent danger of being expelled as they believed. 
The forces back of the Mikado were by no means entirely 
anti-foreign. In the face of what Seward believed to be the 
dangers of the situation his policy was aggressive and bel- 
ligerent. He believed that "very large interests, not of our 
own country only, but of the civilized world, are involved 
in retaining the foothold of foreign nations already acquired 
in the Empire of Japan." ^^ Towards Japan Seward di- 
rected a policy far more vigorous than any preceding secre- 
tary of state had directed towards China, but at no time had 
China appeared to be seeking to expel the foreigners. 

Immediately upon receipt of information as to the mur- 
der of Heusken, which reached Seward just at the out- 
break of the Civil War, the Secretary of State initiated a 



SEWARD'S FAR EASTERN POLICY 413 

proposal to the treaty powers — France, Great Britain, Rus- 
sia and Prussia — for a joint naval demonstration against 
Japan to compel Japan to comply with the stipulations of 
the treaties.* ^^ 

This proposal, as we have seen, was quite contrary to 
the judgment of Townsend Harris, who even recommended 
that he be given discretionary powers to postpone the open- 
ing of Yedo and Osaka. Seward rather reluctantly con- 
curred with Harris, urgently insisting, however, that there 
be no relaxation of the demand for the fulfillment of the 
treaties until the Japanese had rendered abundant satis- 
faction for Heusken.^^ 

While Seward's energetic proposal in May, 1861, may 
have been a part of a larger policy by which he sought to 
secure the cooperation of the European powers in a joint 
undertaking to divert them from intervening in the domes- 
tic conflict of the United States, nevertheless Seward was 
not slow to return to proposals for coercive measures against 
Japan whenever he thought the situation required them. 
"You cannot too strongly advise the Government of Japan," 
he wrote, December 13, 1862, "that it can only have friend- 
ship or even peace with the United States by protecting 
the citizens and subjects of foreign powers from domestic 
violence." ^^ Six months later (June 29, 1863) he stated: 

"The United States having no grievances of their own to complain 
of against Japan, will not unite in hostilities against that govern- 
ment, but they will at the same time take care not to disapprove of 
or censure, without just cause, the measures of Great Britain which 
will result in greater security for all." " 

A few days later he wrote that while Pruyn's whole moral 
influence must be exerted to preserve peace between Japan 
and the Western powers, the Wyoming would have author- 

* This proposal called for the presentation of a joint note accompanied by 
the assembly of a combined fleet in Japanese waters. An answer to the demands 
was to be required after a certain period of delay. If the answer were unfa- 
vorable or evasive, Seward proposed that the diplomatic representatives be 
withdrawn "and such hostilities be commenced and prosecuted as the naval 
commanders may deem most likely to bring the Japanese to a sense of their 
obligations." To this proposal there were attached two qualifications : (1) that 
the United States would make a special demand for satisfaction for the murder 
of Huesken ; (2) that "this convention is not to be considered as obligatory 
on" the United States until the sanction of Congress has been obtained to the 
beginning of hostilities. (May 20, 1861.) ^^ 



414 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

ity to "use her guns" for the protection of the Legation or of 
American citizens. Seward approved of the expedition of 
the Wyoming to Shimoneseki in July, 1863, and authorized 
Pruyn to use a firm and strong policy to induce Japan to 
to live up to its duties under the treaties. The joint expedi- 
tion to Shimoneseki in September, 1864, met with Seward's 
full approval, even though it marked an absolute departure 
from traditional American policy in the matter of joint 
naval operations with other powers. He also approved, 
though he did not authorize, the visit of Portman to Osaka 
on a British war vessel in 1865 in the joint naval demonstra- 
tion by which the Mikado was induced to approve the 
treaties, and the government made to revise and lower the 
tariff schedule. Indeed, one receives the impression from 
a review of the correspondence that with Japan Seward was 
disposed towards more forceful measures than the Ameri- 
can representatives thought it wise to employ. Seward, 
more than any secretary of state before or since his day, 
was favorably disposed toward a "gun-boat policy." 

How much of Seward's policy for Japan was due to the 
necessities of the international situation arising out of the 
American Civil War it is difficult to say. He was thoroughly 
committed to the cooperative policy, but in China the 
cooperation was directed towards moderation and pacific 
measures, while in Japan it eventuated in joint hostilities. 

In his instructions to Pruyn (November 15, 1861) 
Seward expressed the fear that Japan, which had been 
"gently coerced" by the United States into friendship, might 
seize the present opportunity "to underrate our power" and 
"to disregard our rights." ^'^ He looked forward to the day 
when "our domestic differences being ended, we are able 
once more to demonstrate our power in the East and estab- 
lish our commerce there on secure foundations." Mean- 
while Pruyn was to make a brave show of confidence and 
power and thus seek to preserve friendly relations. The 
United States, declared the Secretary, sought no exclusive 
advantages. "Preserve friendly relations with all European 
powers. Leave behind you all memories of domestic or 



SEWARD'S FAR EASTERN POLICY 415 

European jealousies or antipathies." And then as the diffi- 
culties with the European powers over the Civil War in- 
creased, Seward wrote (December 19, 1861): 

"I cannot too earnestly enjoin upon you the duty of cultivating 
the best possible understanding with these representatives [the other 
foreign ministers] and of doing all in your power to maintain har- 
mony of views and policy between them and yourself." " 

When Pruyn expressed to the ministers of the Shogun 
government the personal opinion that the foreign powers 
would be disposed to support the Shogun against the clans, 
Seward commented that while the United States would 
cooperate with the Japanese authorities to secure the ful- 
fillment of the treaties, no inference must be drawn that the 
United States would separate itself from cooperation with 
the other treaty powers.^^ The measures to which this 
policy of cooperation appeared to be leading the United 
States in the joint Shimoneseki expedition and the joint 
convention which followed it, may have been a little dis- 
quieting but nevertheless, in view of the reason for co- 
operation, Seward wrote: "I am authorized by the Presi- 
dent to assure you that they are fully approved."* ^° 

In the revolution which accompanied the Restoration 
Seward advised Van Valkenburgh to adhere to the existing 
government, i.e., the Tycoon, so long as that government 
retained its power.^- Two years later, after he had visited 
Japan, he stated that he had used all his influence to ''pre- 
vent the late revolution" because he thought it was a ''retro- 
grade movement." "I little dreamed," he explained, "that 
the Mikado would excel the dethroned Tycoon in emulating 
Western civilization." 

On the subject of religious toleration Seward entertained 
very decided views. When a persecution of Christians at 
Nagasaki broke out in 1867, he took up with other powers 
the question of a united appeal to Japan to repeal and abro- 
gate the laws which prohibit Christianity. And a year 
later he wrote: "Humanity indeed demands and expects 
a continually extending sway of the Christian religion." 

♦Gideon Welles expressed strong dissent from this approval." 



416 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

However he expected this to come by a "diffusion of knowl- 
edge and calm and persevering appeal to the reason and 
consciences of men." He directed Van Valkenburgh to 
warn Japan that "when one foreign Christian shall have 
suffered martyrdom for his faith, Christendom will be 
shocked to its center and it may demand that the policy of 
forbearance and encouragement which the treaty powers 
have hitherto practised in Japan shall be reversed." ^^ 

Alaska and Korea 

Seward appears not to have been conscious that the 
American Civil War was to mark a new phase of American 
development in which internal growth would quite eclipse 
the interests of foreign trade as he had viewed them in the 
fifties. He returned to his former interest in the extension 
of American trade in the Pacific when the war cares were re- 
moved. He negotiated the purchase of Alaska in 1867 and 
at the same time initiated a movement to secure, jointly 
with France, the opening of Korea. -^ 

While the motives which inspired the purchase of Alaska 
have been a matter of doubt and dispute, and were care- 
fully concealed from Stoeckl, the Russian minister, at the 
time of the negotiations, it is difficult to resist the conclu- 
sion that Seward saw in Alaska and the Aleutian Islands 
a way of "extending a friendly hand to Asia." ^^ Indeed his 
son stated definitely that the motive back of the purchase 
of Alaska was the desire for "advanced naval outposts" such 
as had been lacking in the north Pacific as well as in the 
West Indies during the recent war.-® The United States 
took possession of the Midway Islands in August, 1867.^'^ 
A few months later Seward wrote to the American represen- 
tative at Honolulu (September 12, 1867), "that a lawful 
and peaceful annexation of the islands to the United States 
with the consent of the people of the Sandwich Islands, is 
deemed desirable by this government." ^^ Seward had in 
mind American expansion in the Pacific and shortly after 
his departure from the Department of State he outlined to 



I 



SEWARD'S FAR EASTERN POLICY 417 

the people of Oregon a program of statesmanship for the 
Pacific Coast which called for the United States to "own 
and possess" islands in the Pacific, He urged them to re- 
gard the extension of American invention and enterprise 
into Japan, China, Australia and India as worthy of consid- 
eration equally with international commerce between the 
United States and the countries of western Europe.-^ 

The opening of Korea was forced upon the attention of 
Seward by the reported aggressions of France. In March, 
1866, a number of French Roman Catholic missionaries and 
their converts were massacred in Korea. When rumors of 
the facts reached China Rear Admiral Roze, of the French 
squadron in the China Seas, was dispatched to Korea to 
make an investigation and also to conduct a preliminary 
survey of the coast with a view to the dispatch of a more 
formidable expedition later. Admiral Roze returned with 
the information that the General Sherman, an American 
vessel which was seeking to open up trade with the Koreans, 
had been burned and the crew murdered.* ^^ At about the 
same time an American schooner, the Surprise, was wrecked 
on the coast of Korea and the crew was treated with civility 
and kindness, being returned to China by way of Mukden 
and Newchwang. 

Meanwhile the General Sherman affair and the French 
action after the murder of the missionaries was creating a 
great deal of uneasiness in China among the foreign repre- 
sentatives. M. de Bellonet, the French Charge, without 
authorization from Paris had made an abrupt demand on 
the Chinese Government for satisfaction for the action of 
the Koreans. He addressed to Prince Kung an extraor- 
dinary note in which, reminding him that the Fren<3h were 
a people who loved war, he calmly announced that in a 
few days the French military forces would "march to the 

*The actual details of the General Sherman affair were not known for nearly 
twenty years. It was eventually established, however, that the General Sherman 
entered the mouth of the Ta-dong River at the time of a freshet and was 
stranded in the river when the water suddenly fell. The crew, which was 
heavily armed, misunderstood the advances of the Korean authorities, and sub- 
jected them to many indignities. Whereupon fire-rafts were set out in the river 
to drift down on the General Sherman and the crew was put to death. If the 
fault for the loss of the vessel and its crew was partly that of the Koreans, 
at least it was probably not exclusively theirs.^i 



418 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

conquest of Korea/' even going so far as to state that only 
the Emperor of France now had the "right and power to 
dispose, according to his good pleasure, of the country and 
the vacant throne." Bellonet stated that "the prince 
to whom will be confided the destinies of Korea, under the 
protectorate of his Majesty, the Emperor (French), must 
become a Christian." ^^ Prince Kung, probably upon the 
advice of Burlingame, made public the correspondence 
which had passed between him and the French Charge, 
much to the latter's discomfiture. Admiral Roze followed 
up his preliminary survey with a strong expedition in Oc- 
tober but was unable to accomplish anything beyond the 
destruction of Kang-hoa, a city on an island north of 
Chemulpo. The Roze expedition was looked upon by 
Koreans, Chinese and foreigners alike as a virtual defeat 
for France, It was expected that in the following spring 
the French would coUect a more powerful expedition and 
make a second attack. Sir Rutherford Alcock was pre- 
paring to attend the expedition, whether invited or not, 
with a British naval force to look out for the British inter- 
ests, and Burlingame, as alarmed as his colleagues at the 
disclosure of such extensive French ambitions, urged that 
he be instructed to join the expedition. He wrote (Decem- 
ber 15, 1866) : 

"If my advice can have weight, it will be that our presence there 
should rather restrain than promote aggression, and serve to limit 
action to such satisfaction only as great and civilized nations should, 
under the circumstances, have from the ignorant and the weak." ** 

Proposed Joint Expedition to Korea 

The interest of France in Korea was not news to the 
Department of State. Ten years before the French minis- 
ter at Washington had solicited the cooperation of President 
Pierce in a plan by which France would occupy Korea as 
part of a joint plan to compel China to revise the treaties. 
In 1861 Townsend Harris had reported that there was talk, 
at the time the Russians occupied Tsushima, that France 



SEWARD'S FAR EASTERN POLICY 419 

was contemplating with Great Britain the partition of 
Japan. Seward, on receipt of the reports of Bellonet's 
correspondence with Prince Kung and the presence of the 
French forces in Korea, jumped to the conclusion that the 
expected partition of Asia had begun. Four days after re- 
ceiving the Burlingame dispatch of November 12, not know- 
ing that the French expedition was unauthorized, Seward 
found an opportunity to propose to Berthemy, the French 
minister at Washington, that the United States and France 
unite in joint action to obtain from Korea satisfaction for 
the murders of the French and the Americans. Berthemy, 
ignorant of Seward's motives and knowing nothing of the 
Bellonet correspondence, was mystified, and yet was in- 
clined to approve the proposal. But before Seward's pro- 
posal had reached Paris the French Government, embar- 
rassed alike by the necessity of withdrawing the French 
forces from Mexico and by the reports of Admiral Roze's 
failure, had found it expedient to announce to the Corps 
Legislatif that the first reports from Korea were mislead- 
ing and that actually a great victory had been achieved. 
M. de Bellonet, instead of being recalled in disgrace, was 
promoted to Stockholm, and Admiral Roze escaped repri- 
mand. No reason now existed for a joint expedition with 
the American forces into Korea, so the proposal of Seward 
was declined graciously. By a fortuitous course of blunders 
and accidents the United States was thus released from obli- 
gation to carry through what could hardly have failed to be a 
thoroughly disagreeable program.^* 

The next year (1867) the American naval forces in the 
Far East made two attempts to learn the details of the 
fate of the General Sherman, but in vain. Then Seward's 
nephew. Consul General George F. Seward of Shanghai, 
sought a commission to proceed to Korea with a view to 
making a treaty, and the request was granted. George F. 
Seward was given a letter from President Johnson to the 
king, and was authorized to proceed to Korea, supported 
by a naval force, "to procure a treaty of amity and com- 
merce as nearly similar in its provisions to those existing 



420 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

between the United States and Japan as may be found 
practicable and expedient." ^^ 

In the instructions to young Seward was a paragraph in 
which the Secretary of State, no longer embarrassed by the 
threatened annexation of the peninsula, resumed a policy 
more in accord with the general spirit of American relations 
in Asia. He wrote : 

"The design of this government is to render your visit a generous 
and friendly one, reserving the question of force, if fovmd necessary, 
for ultimate consideration. You will not be expected therefore either 
to direct the exercise or make any display of force by way of intimi- 
dation, but on the other hand you will be expected to practise dis- 
cretion, prudence and patience, while firmly asserting the dignity and 
maintaining the demands of the United States. You will however 
give notice to the Korean Government, if you find it expedient, that 
this government cannot suffer the outrage committed in the case of 
the General Sherman to remain indefinitely without receiving proper 
guaranty of adequate and ample redress." 

This expedition to Korea was not undertaken because 
when the instructions arrived in Shanghai it had been dis- 
covered that it was not likely to meet with success. 

A survey of Seward's eight-year record in the Depart- 
ment of State leads inevitably to the conclusion that he 
was the greatest Secretary of State, so far as Far Eastern 
matters are concerned, since Daniel Webster. Indeed, we 
may say, at the risk of anticipating a conclusion the facts 
for which appear in subsequent chapters, that Seward was 
the only Secretary of State in the nineteenth century, until 
John Hay, who appears to have had a firm grip on the sit- 
uation. And when compared with Hay it will be found 
that Seward had superior abilities to follow a policy through 
when beset with diflEiculties. In many of the stipulations of 
the Burlingame Treaty Americans may take honest pride, 
yet in this compact the immigration question was not 
treated with statesmanship. The most conspicuous feature 
of Seward's policy, aside from its aggressiveness, was his 
desire for cooperation with other treaty powers. Where 
other occupants of the office both before and after his time 
dodged and evaded the problem of cooperation, Seward met 
it boldly. For the sake of maintaining cooperation he at 



SEWARD'S FAR EASTERN POLICY 421 

times sacrificed American ideals. Over against the treaty 
with China there stands to his credit two of the most un- 
American actions, one accomplished and the other proposed, 
in all American history. The joint Convention with Japan 
in 1866, and the proposed joint expedition for the coercion 
of Korea were not worthy, even after all possible explana- 
tions have been made and accepted, of American traditions. 
But in neither case was Seward acting as a free agent. He 
was paying the price of cooperation with states which had 
entirely different ideals as to the execution of their poli- 
cies in Asia. To later administrations such cooperation was 
distasteful, and was abandoned. There is, however, this to 
be said, that after 1868 American interests in Asia steadily 
receded until three decades later when the American Gov- 
ernment resumed the policy of cooperation. The with- 
drawal of the United States from cooperation was one, 
though not the only, cause of this retirement of American 
influence. 

BIBLIOGEAPHICAL NOTES 

1. Geo. E. Baker : "Works of William H. Seward," Yol. 1, pp. 51 ff, 

236 ff, 249-50, 356; Yol. 4, p. 125, pp. 24, 25. 

2. Papers Relating to the Intercontinental Telegraph; Seward to 

the Committee of Commerce of the Senate, Gov't. Printing 
Office (1864). 

3. Burlingame was first appointed minister to Yienna, but was 

unacceptable to the Austrian Government because of his sym- 
pathies for the cause of Kossuth. While in Paris Burlingame 
received notice of his appointment to Pekin. This, in part, 
may account for Seward's failure to issue the customary in- 
structions. China Despatches, Yol. 20, July 6, 1861, Burlin- 
game to Seward. See F. W. Williams : "Anson Burlingame." 

4. Dip. Corres., 1862, p. 839. 

5. Ihid., 1865, Yol. II, p. 461, Aug. 14, 1865. 

6. lUd., 1866, p. 536. 

7. Ihid., 1866, p. 536. 

8. China Instructions, Yol. 1, June 20, 1867. 

9. C. O. Paullin: C7. 8. Naval Imt. Proceedings, 1911, pp. 1139 ff. 

10. William H. Seward's "Travels Around the World," P- 216. 

11. Japan Instructions, Yol. 1, Dec. 19, 1861. 

12. Dip. Corres., 1862, pp. 814-16, p. 547. 

13. Notes to Russian Legation, Yol. YI, p. 102, May 20, 1861, 

Seward to Stoeckl. 

14. Dip. Corres., 1862, pp. 813, 814. 



422 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

15. Ihid., 1862, p. 974. 

16. Hid., 1863, p. 1036. 

17. Ihid., 1862, p. 817. 

18. lUd., 1862, p. 819. 

19. Ihid., 1863, p. 1013. 

20. Ihid., 1865, p. 229. 

21. Diary of Gideon Welles, Vol. 2, p. 210; Vol. 3, p. 89. 

22. Dip. Corres., 1868, p. 705. 

23. Japan Instructions, Vol. 1, Sept. 5, 1868 ; see also Oct. 7, 1867, 

July 14 and Oct. 5, 1868 ; For. Eel., 1868, p. 757. 

24. See Tyler Dennett: "Seward's Far Eastern Policy," Amer. Hist. 

Rev., Oct. 1922, pp. 45-62, for a discussion of the purchase of 
Alaska in the light of recently discovered evidence of a con- 
temporaneously proposed joint expedition with the French to 
Korea. 

25. Frank A. Golden: "Purchase of Alaska," Amer. Hist. Rev., Vol. 

XXV, No. 3, pp. 11 ff; Speech of Chas. Sumner of Mass., on 
the Cession of Russian America, p. 1. 

26. F. W. Seward: Reminiscences, p. 360. 

27. S. Ex. Doc. 79:40-2; S. Rept. 194:40-3; Moore's "Digest," Vol. 

1, p. 555. 

28. Moore's "Digest," Vol. 1, p. 484 (footnote). 

29. Seward's Works, Vol. 5, pp. 577 ff. 

30. Henri Cordier: "Relations de la Chine," Vol. 1, pp. 267 ff ; W. E. 

Griffis: "Corea, the Hermit Nation," pp. 373, 482-3; Korean 
Repository, July, 1898; Dip. Corres., Vol. 1, pp. 414-5, 419 ff. 

31. Korean Despatches, Vol. 2, Mar. 29, 1885, Foulk to Chandler 

(filed by date); Griffis: "Corea," p. 395 (footnote). 

32. Cordier: "Relations," Vol. 1, p. 268. 

33. Dip. Corres., 1867, Vol. 1, p. 426. 

34. The documentary evidence of Seward's proposal for the joint 

expedition into Korea is a despatch of Berthemy to Marquis 
de Moustier, Mar. 2, 1867, in the archives of the French Em- 
bassy at Washington. See also F. F. Low to Hamilton Fish, 
Feb. 1, 1873, China Desp., Vol. 33, which encloses a draft of 
the answer which was sent to Berthemy from Paris in reply 
to Seward's proposal. See Tyler Dennett in Amer. Hist. Rev., 
Oct., 1922, for a full discussion of these documents and for the 
details of Seward's Far Eastern policy. 

35. Dispatches to Consuls, Vol. 49, p. 267; For. Rel., 1870, pp. 336-9. 



PART V 
THE RISE OF JAPAN 



CHAPTER XXIII 

EIEST STEPS IN JAPANESE EXPANSION 

The contrasts between China and Japan, always strik- 
ing, were never more so than at the time of the Japanese 
Restoration (1867). China, spread over more than thirty 
degrees of longitude, including every sort of climate, soil 
and mineral resource, was economically self-sufficient, and 
believed herself to be politically independent. Japan, a 
small island empire of which only a little more than one- 
seventh was arable land, with relatively few known mineral 
resources, unable to procure such essential articles as sugar 
and cotton, frankly recognized her economic dependence 
and her potential political weakness. Her rocky and storm- 
bound coasts, a sure defense under a policy of seclusion in 
the days of sail-navigation were, in the new era which had 
been ushered in by foreigners in heavily armored, steam- 
propelled vessels, as much prison walls as defenses. Only 
the merest fringe of the Chinese Empire had been touched 
by the foreigner. Canton, the rocky island of Hongkong, 
the new city of Shanghai, Tientsin, and even Peking had at 
times within the past generation been occupied by foreign 
military forces, but these cities were only on the circum- 
ference of an immense world which comprised nearly a 
fourth of the population of the entire globe. Even if the 
foreigners had permanently held every one of these points 
and many more, the Chinese people would not have been 
greatly embarrassed commercially, industrially, or even po- 
litically. Between the mountains and the sea China had 
every possible resource necessary for comfort as well as for 
existence, and to the advance of the foreigner there was op- 
posed a vast mass of civilized, organized, industrious hu- 
manity. In comparison with China, Japan was a prison. 

425 



426 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

Within its narrow borders the Japanese people might con- 
tinue to hve as they had in the past, but no longer as volun- 
tary prisoners; they would be in the position of captives. 
If the foreigners were to hold her few harbors, Yokohama, 
Hiogo, Nagasaki, the Straits of Shimoneseki and Hakodate, 
which has the qualities of a Gibraltar, they could reduce the 
proud Japanese Empire to an industrial and political condi- 
tion incomparably inferior to what was possible for any 
other oriental state, with the possible exception of the 
Malay peninsula and archipelago. 

The political theories about which the two empires were 
organized had a common characteristic; each nation re- 
garded its sovereign as either actually or potentially over- 
lord of the world. In oriental political economy there were 
but two possible classifications of states — tribute-bearing 
and tribute-receiving. Both China and Japan belonged to 
the latter class. The Emperor of China had insisted that 
the European nations bring tribute and perform the 
kotow if they would enter his presence. Japan held its 
Mikado in religious reverence; he was of divine origin — a 
tribal god — yet possessed of discretion sufficient to pre- 
vent him from demanding in fact the obeisance of the world 
which was believed to be due in theory. The contrast be- 
tween China and Japan at this point lay in the fact that 
while China's claims to over-lordship were undercut by an 
essentially democratic and peace-seeking domestic organiza- 
tion, and crumpled before the impact of the Western World, 
Japan's claims were supported by popular assent and reli- 
gious enthusiasm and at the opening of the nation to the 
Western World entered a renascence of vitality. 

When Lord Hotta, the Shogun's prime minister, went to 
Kioto in March, 1858, to seek the assent of the Mikado to 
the Harris treaty, he unfolded to his sovereign in an address 
to the throne a theory of sovereignty in which this religio- 
political idea is defined with precision. He wrote: 

"Among the rulers of the world at present, there is none so noble 
and illustrious as to command universal vassalage, or who can make 
his virtuous influence felt throughout the length and breadth of the 



FIRST STEPS IN JAPANESE EXPANSION 427 

whole world. To have such a ruler over the whole world is doubtless 
in conformity with the will of Heaven. . . . 

". . . and in establishing relations with foreign countries, the 
object should always be kept in view of laying a foundation for secur- 
ing the hegemony over all nations." 

As a first step in the accomplishment of this purpose, after 
the domestic affairs of Japan had been renovated and for- 
eign relations established, he recommended that Japan 
should "join hands with nations whose principles may be 
found identical with those of our country. 

"An alliance thus formed should also be directed towards pro- 
tecting harmless but powerless nations. Such a polity could be 
nothing else but the enforcement of the power and authority deputed 
(to us) by the Spirit of Heaven. Our national prestige and position 
thus insured, the nations of the world will come to look up to our 
Emperor as the Great Ruler of all the nations, and they will come 
to follow our policy and submit themselves to our judgment." * ^ 

This same idea reappears at regular intervals in the litera- 
ture of Japan throughout the remainder of the nineteenth 
century. There is nothing comparable to it in the utter- 
ances of contemporaneous Chinese statesmen. 



The Politically Nebulous East 

With these fundamental differences between China and 
Japan in mind let us turn to a brief consideration of the 
political situation thus created. 

Eastern Asia was in a politically nebulous state, which 
might be compared roughly to a solar system before the 
orbits of the planets had become fixed or the satellites prop- 
erly distributed. There were certain central masses, some 
with greater, some with lesser degrees of specific gravity, 
and there were smaller organisms which swung on irregular 
orbits in between the larger spheres. These latter bodies, 
while influenced in their movements by each of the larger 
masses, were still not wholly assigned to any one of them. 

*Prof. W W. McLaren states : "Expansion and aggrandizement of the 
Empire had formed an integral part of the teaching of the loyalist schools 
before the Restoration Yoshida Shoin . j^e Chpshiu patriot, had published a 
book in which he had predictedr^fe d: consequence of therestoration of the 
Emperor, the conquest of Formosa, the Kurile Islands, Kamchatka, Korea, 
and a large portion of Manchuria and Siberia." ^ 



1 



428 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

The large spheres were China, Japan, Russia in Asia and 
Great Britain in Asia. The potential satellites were the 
islands off the coast of Asia — the Kuriles, Sakhalin, Yezo, 
Tsushima, the Bonin Islands, the Lew Chew group, and 
Formosa; and the so-called tributary states surrounding 
China — Burmah, Annam, Tibet and Korea. Until the 
Europeans came with their rapid and reliable communica- 
tion and attempted to apply the rules of Western inter- 
national law, these regions and islands had given to the 
larger Asiatic states only a moderate degree of trouble; 
lacking the steamship and the telegraph wire both Japan 
and China were quite content with the political status quo. 
Now the situation was radically changed. Immediate rea- 
sons appeared for a closer organization of the politically 
nebulous East. We see the consolidation taking place 
within China and Japan; we note also a proportionate in- 
crease in the power of gravitation which these masses, with 
which may be included the Russian and British Empires 
and France, began to pull upon the intervening islands 
and the outlying regions. The laws of physics operated 
in international politics. The pull upon these semi-de- 
tached spheres was in direct ratio to the specific gravity of 
the neighboring masses, and in inverse ratio to the distance. 
China's relation to these satellite bodies was simple. 
Formosa ^ was an integral part of the Chinese Empire, ad- 
ministered as a part of the Province of Fukien, and yet re- 
maining largely in the possession of unconquered, unsub- 
dued aborigines. The Lew Chew Islands'* had their own 
king, who, however, received his investiture from the Chi- 
nese Emperor and paid a regular tribute to Peking through 
the customs oj0&cer at Foochow. Korea,^ Burmah and An- 
nam likewise had their own kings, but received investiture 
from and paid tribute to Peking. Tibet, similarly to For- 
mosa, was an integral part of the Chinese Empire. Into 
the history of the origin and growth of these relationships 
it is not necessary to go. In the middle of the nineteenth 
century they were entirely voluntary and mostly ceremo- 
nial. There had been an extension of the traditional 



FIRST STEPS IN JAPANESE EXPANSION 429 

patriarchal system on a regal scale. The dependence in so 
far as it was actual was more economic than political. 
China was a source upon which any economically deficient 
nation might draw to supplement its resources. The trib- 
ute-bearing embassies were accompanied by trading expedi- 
tions. On the other hand these territories, while of no ac- I 
tual value to China, had a potential importance in that they / 
would be a menace to the empire were they to fall into 
unfriendly hands. Rather than call them active buffer- 
states, we may describe them as c omforta ^^'^ nisb^"^^^^^-' 
Probably none of them in the nineteenth century could or 
would have gone to war to defend the Chinese Empire. 
China would not have gone to war to protect them from 
injury, nor did she compel Siam to continue to pay tribute 
after 1834. Indeed China had not only already acquiesced 
in the entrance of the British in Burmah and the French 
in Annam, but had even ceded a part of one of her own 
provinces, the left bank of the Amur, to Russia in 1860. 
The situation with Japan was very different. To no part 
of the mainland of Asia did Japan lay any claim except that 
Korea, until 1832, had been accustomed to pay tribute to 
Japan as well as to China.^ The Korean tribute was partly 
like that to China, ceremonial and symbolic of a trade rela- 
tionship, and partly an oriental form of black-mail such as 
all tribute had once been, by which Korea purchased im- 
munity. The Lew Chew Islands paid a similar tribute 
which, however, went directly to the Prince of Satsuma 
rather than to the Mikado or Shogun. . All of the islands 
north and east of the Lew Chew group Japan claimed as a 
part of the Japanese Empire. The Bonins had been discov- 
ered centuries before by a Japanese navigator. Tsushima, 
lying between Japan and Korea, was purely Japanese and 
under the rule of a daimio. Yezo (now called Hokkaido) 
was Japanese beyond dispute, although it was sparsely set- 
tled. The Kurile Islands were claimed but not occupied. 
Sakhalin also was claimed although it was not until 1808 
that a Japanese navigator first sailed around the island and 
discovered that it was not a peninsula of Asia.'^ Japan did 



430 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

not administer Sakhalin, nor were there on the island more 
than a very few Japanese settlers. These islands were to the 
Japanese Empire what the surrounding states of her neigh- 
bor were to China — buffers of little or no value until they 
were threatened by some hostile power. That these islands 
might be valuable as sources of raw materials did not be- 
come apparent to the Japanese until their potential wealth 
had been pointed out to them by foreigners. On the other 
hand, Formosa, to which the Japanese set up no sort of 
claim, already seemed desirable because of its supplies of 
tropical produce. 

We have now before us a view of the stage upon which 
Japan was to enact the j&rst scenes in its unfolding drama 
of political expansion. 

The Japanese Empire Begins Consolidation 

In 1861 Russia occupied the island of Tsushima, which 
is of great strategic value because it commands the southern 
entrance to the Sea of Japan. The Russians built barracks 
and planted seed as though they had every intention of 
remaining permanently. "For the last eighteen months," 
wrote Townsend Harris in reporting the situation, ''many 
officials, English and French, civilians and naval men, have 
frequently declared that war with Japan was inevitable, and 
that it could only end in the partition of the country 
(Japan). It is said that the Russian commander justified 
his action by referring to these declarations, adding that he 
remains at Tsushima solely for the purpose of preventing 
its falling into the power of the English or French." ^ To 
this dispatch Seward replied with a confidence in his ability 
to influence the Far Eastern policy of Russia which now 
seems amazing: 

"If the occupation of Tsushima is still an object of anxiety to his 
Majesty, the Tycoon, I will at once call the attention of the President 
to the matter, and with his authority, which I doubt not will be 
granted, I will, in the name of this government, as the friend of 
Japan, as well as of Russia, seek from the latter explanations which 
I should hope would be satisfactory to Japan." 



FIRST STEPS IN JAPANESE EXPANSION 431 

Seward was as alert to meet any efforts looking towards the 
partition of Japan as Humphrey Marshall had been to pre- 
vent the partition of China. 

Before Seward's offer of good offices reached Japan 
Admiral Sir James Hope, supported by a formidable British 
fleet, had ordered the Russians to leave the island and they 
had obeyed. Meanwhile Japan, which had other matters of 
dispute with Russia, had entered into friendly negotiations 
with her threatening neighbor through the Japanese Em- 
bassy then visiting Europe. 

With Russia Japan was in the midst of prolonged nego- 
tiations over the possession of Sakhalin and the Kurile 
Islands. The Russians had lodged a claim for Sakhalin as 
early as 1804.*^ By the treaty of 1855 the boundary in the 
Kuriles had been fixed between Urup and Iturup but the 
two nations had been left in joint occupation of Sakhalin. 
In 1859 Count Muravieff entered Yedo accompanied by a 
naval force and demanded the cession of the entire island 
to Russia. When reminded of the treaty he declared that in 
making it Count Putiatin had exceeded his instructions 
and that the compact, notwithstanding the ratifications, was 
invalid. The Japanese would not yield. Three years later 
the two nations agreed in principle to the division of the 
island at the 50th parallel, but the agreement was not 
consummated owing to the state of Japanese domestic 
affairs. 

In 1866 the Shogun's government sent an envoy to St, 
Petersburg to reach a settlement but nothing was accom- 
plished. Four years later the newly constituted Mikado's 
government instituted a Board of Exploration for Sakhalin. 
That same year the Japanese Government sought the good 
offices of William H. Seward when he was passing through 
Japan on his tour of the world, to secure the mediation of 
the United States in the controversy. Seward suggested 
that a simple solution of the difficulty would be for Japan to 
buy the Russian claims to the island just as the United 
States had purchased Alaska. ^*^ The Japanese did not relish 
the idea of buying what they believed to be theirs by right. 



432 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

The suggestion, however, was adopted, but Russia rejected 
the proposal. The Japanese Government made formal ap- 
plication through the American minister, C. E. De Long, for 
the good offices of the United States, and Secretary of State 
Fish immediately took up the matter in an informal way 
with the Russian Government. Russia replied both gra- 
ciously and adroitly that it would not be possible to submit 
such a matter to mediation because a precedent would thus 
be established which some unfriendly European power 
might subsequently attempt to utilize to the disadvantage 
of Russia.^ ^ 

Several attempts to fix the boundary were made in the 
next few years and in 1875 Admiral Enomoto signed a 
treaty in St. Petersburg by which Russia received the whole 
of Sakhalin, while certain rights in the island were secured 
to Japan, and Japan took most of the Kuriles. Tokio had 
seized a moment to settle the matter while Russia was 
again becoming involved in the Balkans. Japan was willing 
to make a concession in this settlement because by it Japan 
was for the first time negotiating the revision of a treaty on 
equal terms with a European power. This precedent Japan 
deemed valuable at the time when she was setting out on her 
long negotiations for the revision of the treaties of 1858 and 
1866.12 

Towards the end of 1861 the Japanese formally notified 
Townsend Harris that they intended to reoccupy the Bonin 
Islands which they claimed by right of discovery in the 
sixteenth century. They declared that the rights of Ameri- 
cans would not be disturbed. Seward allowed the matter to 
pass without comment although Commander John Kelly 
had formally taken possession of the Coffin group of the 
Bonins in 1853. Japan was forced to withdraw from the 
Bonins for a time during the domestic disturbances, but 
returned to them again. The Japanese yoke did not rest 
easily upon the Americans in the islands who had long been 
a law unto themselves and had even adopted piracy as a 
profession. 1^ There were several protests; in 1864 Pruyn 
collected $1000 in settlement of a claim made by a sailor 



FIRST STEPS IN JAPANESE EXPANSION 433 

from Perry's fleet who had been left there.^* But in 1873 
Secretary of State Fish formally ruled that inasmuch as the 
possession of the islands had never been expressly sanctioned 
by the American Government those citizens who had gone 
there were to be regarded as having expatriated them- 
selves.^^ Great Britain after investigation also abandoned 
its claim. The Japanese came into undisputed possession of 
the islands which they now regard as legally a part of the. 
mainland of Japan. 

It was the assumption of the foreign representatives in j\ 
China in 1866 that Korea was a dependency of the Chinese fj 
Empire.^ *^ Japan, while still holding to such claims on the; ' 
peninsula as had been represented by the tribute which was/ 
paid regularly before 1832, gave tacit assent to the priority ^ 
of China in Korea. In that year Prince Kung, foreseeing \ 
that the assertion of Chinese suzerainty over Korea at the 
time of the murder of the French missionaries would lead 
directly to a demand on China for reparations to be paid to 
France, adopted the characteristically Chinese policy of 
evading responsibility for these claims. This act of the 
Chinese Government, while appearing to be the easiest way 
out of a difficulty, was a repudiation by China of suzerainty 
over the peninsula. The French Charge, Bellonet, had 
forthwith seized upon this repudiation, and proceeded 
against Korea as an independent kingdom. The Chinese 
Government expressed no interest in the American expedi- 
tions of the following year under Commanders Robert W. 
Shufeldt and John C. Febiger respectively. The contrast 
between the policy of China and that of Japan at this point 
is significant. 

The Japanese, although in the midst of the disturbances 
which preceded the Restoration, immediately expressed con- 
cern in both the French expeditions and the visits of the 
American naval vessels. The Tycoon announced (May, 
1867) to United States Minister Van Valkenburgh his inten- 
tion to send an envoy to Korea because he had learned that 
there was war between the French and the Koreans. He 
was also much disturbed over the troubles between the 



i 



434 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

Koreans and the Americans because Korea "is a neighbor of 
Japan" and the "United States and Japan are friends." 
He extended the good offices of Japan and expressed the 
hope that through Japanese influence the Korean king 
would sue for peace, and that the flag of the United States 
would return to the peninsula.^ ''^ 

"This friendly proceeding is highly appreciated," replied 
Seward. "It is deemed proper to add that the Government 
of the United States will feel obliged, should no satisfactory 
explanation or apology be furnished by Korea, to consider 
how proper reparation can be obtained and honor main- 
tained." A few months later (January 27, 1868), while he 
was considering the possibility of a treaty with Korea, Sew- 
ard added an expression of satisfaction that "the United 
States may be able to avail themselves of the good offices 
of the proposed Japanese Legation." ^^ 

Meanwhile Japan experienced many difficulties in re- 
suming intercourse with the peninsula. The Tycoon was 
unable to send the proposed envoy in 1867. The next year 
So, the daimio of Tsushima, through whose office the previ- 
ous intercourse with Korea had been carried on, was ordered 
to send a special mission to announce the Restoration. 
^ Three years before King Chul-chong died without issue and 
boy selected from another branch of the Ni family had 
)een installed with his father, the later well known Tai-wen- 
[un, as regent. The latter was anti-foreign in policy. To 
lim is ascribed the responsibility for having caused the mas- 
sacre of the French missionaries. The Tai-wen-Kun had 
regarded the expedition under Admiral Roze as a complete 
victory for Korea but it had left him greatly enraged against 
the Japanese because many of the troops used in the French 
expedition had been drawn from the French garrison at 
Yokohama. The regent believed that Japan should have 
prevented the sending of these troops, and the fact that 
Japan did not interfere was interpreted by him to mean 
that the Japanese had not only abandoned their policy of 
seclusion but had even gone so far as to enter into an 
alliance with the French. The Korean government refused 



FIRST STEPS IN JAPANESE EXPANSION 435 

to receive the Japanese mission and likewise refused to deal 
with two other missions dispatched in 1869.* 

Thus the first overtures to Korea, with which had been 
coupled a demand that Korea resume the custom of paying 
tribute, utterly failed. In 1868 Herr von Brandt, the Ger- 
man representative in Tokio, whom the Japanese had in- 
vited as they did the Americans, to approach Korea through 
the good offices of Japan with a view to securing a treaty, 
was unceremoniously denied correspondence with the Ko- 
rean government on the ground that he had been accom- 
panied to Fusan by Japanese officers. To one of these 
Japanese commissions the Tai-wen-Kun is believed to have 
replied in the following bellicose manner: 

"Your demand is so unreasonable that instead of Korea paying 
you tribute, it is for you to return the money paid by Korea. In your 
dispatch you have made many insinuations of your having adopted 
foreign customs; but we can assure you that Japan is Japan — Korea 
is Korea, but Korea has its own customs. Some years back we had a 
difference with a country called France which is, among barbarians, 
considered to be very powerful and very large, whilst Korea is very 
small — but we defeated that gi'eat country ! ... To show our honesty, 
when the barbarians went to your country, we immediately wrote you 
that we had made every preparation to help you. But when the 
French attacked Korea you neither sent us aid, nor any answer to our 
dispatch. From that day our treaty of friendship was at an end. . . . 

"Not only have you broken the treaty as we have described, but 
you have also broken another very chief point of the treaty, in adopt- 
ing the mann&rs and customs of the Western barbarians. Our infor- 
mation is that you have adopted French drill — and when you want 
money you go to England ; and if you wish to tax your own people or 
impose duties you take the advice from Americans. You think the 
Western barbarians are great people. We, Koreans, are a very small 
country, but yet we have the courage to put into writing to you that 
Western barbarians are beasts. The above is intended as a direct 
insult to you and your allies — the barbarians." ™ 

Hanabusa, chief secretary of the Japanese Foreign Office, 
was sent to Korea in 1871 with two war vessels to remon- 
strate with the Koreans but they decUned to be intimidated 
and the expedition accomplished nothing. The Koreans 
were particularly disgusted because Hanabusa had adopted 

*One of these latter missions was charged with an investigation of the 
relations then existing between Korea and Russia. Many Japanese officials at 
that time were urging that Japan refuse to yield to the Russian claims for all 
or even any part of Sakhalin.^" 



436 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

foreign styles of clothing. Japan was now on the point of 
going to war with Korea. 

About this time further light on the relations between 
Korea and China was being revealed through the corre- 
spondence of United States Minister F. F. Low with the 
Chinese officials in Peking, In preparation of the American 
expedition to Korea in 1871,* which was really the con- 
summation of the plans made by Seward in 1868, Low 
invited the good offices of China and asked the Peking 
officials to transmit to Korea a letter stating the purpose of 
the proposed expedition. The Chinese complied with the 
request, but stated equivocally that although Korea was a 
''country subordinate to China," nevertheless it was "wholly 
independent in government, religion, prohibitions and laws." 
Low interpreted this answer to mean that China was seek- 
ing not to make clear the relations between the two coun- 
tries, but to avoid the assumption of any liability for the 
loss of the General Sherman or the unrequited murder of 
the French missionaries. 

An answer to Mr. Low's letter to the King of Korea was 
duly received in Peking before the departure of the expedi- 
tion in 1871 and what purported to be a copy of it was 
reluctantly transmitted to the American minister. While 
in Korea Mr. Low received from the Koreans a copy of the 
letter as originally addressed to the Chinese officials. When 
compared with the document which the Chinese had given 
to Mr. Low, it was found that the Chinese had omitted to 
transcribe a part of the letter in which the King of Korea 
had made the most profuse acknowledgments of vassalage 
to the Emperor of China. Low reached the conclusion from 
a comparison of the two documents that China was actually 
very much opposed to the opening of Korea to the Western 
nations. He wrote (August 3, 1871) : 

"That Korea acknowledges the svipremacy of China in a manner 
amounting almost to servility is quite apparent, and it is quite rea- 
sonable to suppose that China does and will use all the means in her 
power short of provoking the hostility of western nations to maintain 
and perpetuate the present status so far as the relation of the two 

*The Low-Eogers Expedition is reviewed in the following chapter. 



FIRST STEPS IN JAPANESE EXPANSION 437 

countries is concerned. So long as Korea maintains her present atti- 
tude of non-intercourse the supremacy of China will be acknowledged 
and observed. This magnifies the importance of China in the estima- 
tion of her people and, in the opinion of the officials, adds to their 
dignity and importance. Were Korea opened to foreign intercourse, 
the bonds of vassalage which bind her to China would be weakened, 
if not broken entirely, and the tribute which now comes annually 
to Peking would soon be numbered among the things of the past. This 
the Peking officials see clearly and hence the desire to see Korea re- 
main as she is." ^^ 

Japan on the Verge of War 

While affairs between Korea and Japan remained still 
unsettled, the latter dispatched (April, 1871) a representa- 
tive to Peking with the rank of Envoy Extraordinary and 
powers to negotiate a treaty with China.^- There were 
many rumors in the foreign settlements both in Japan and 
in China that the intent of this mission was to create an 
offensive and defensive alliance of Japan and China which 
would be directed against the foreign powers. The mission 
was halted at Tientsin and a treaty was signed July 29, 
1871. To the Japanese its provisions were unsatisfactory 
because it did not provide for most-favored-nation treat- 
ment and because it contained only the most grudging con- 
cessions of extraterritoriality with bilateral application. In 
the treaty ports Japanese merchants were to be under the 
joint jurisdiction of the Japanese consul and the local 
Chinese official, and in the interior under the Chinese alone. 
To the foreigners there was one disquieting article in which 
the rumors of the treaty ports appeared to be realized.* It 
provided for a defensive alliance. 

The American minister, possibly the other foreign rep- 
resentatives as well, felt that an alliance between China and 
Japan would be "calamitous" and he exerted his influence to 
have the article stricken out of the treaty. He believed that 

♦Article 2, according to the Chinese text, read : "The two countries having 
a good understanding must naturally feel an interest in each other. If any 
other country treat either with injustice, in such case each will mutually assist 
the other as soon as informed of the necessity, or acting as intermediary, will 
try to skillfully arrange the difficulty, — in this way the friendship will be 
strengthened." 

A translation of the Japanese text was more ambiguous : "China and Japan 
being friendly, either shall in case of experiencing injustice or wrong from 
another state, be entitled to assistance or good offices of the other." ^^ 



438 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

the Japanese were quite different from the Chinese and that 
the former represented a ''power to be welcomed as an ally 
and to be dreaded as a foe by all civilized states should 
trouble occur with China, or our troubles with Korea en- 
large and increase." ^^ This objection to any form of alli- 
ance between the two states appears to have arisen out of 
the fear that in the association thus formed Japan would 
not only acquire the power but also the desire to adopt 
reactionary policies like those of China with reference to 
the modernizing of the empire. Secretary of State Fish, in 
his reply to De Long (December 30, 1872), expressed this 
fear. 

"In any conversation you may have with a view to influencing the 
proceedings of the Japanese Government in its intercourse with 
China it is advisable to induce the Japanese to separate themselves 
as far as possible from the exclusive policy of the Chinese and to 
adopt the progressive policy of free commercial and social intercourse 
with the powers." * ^ 

The fears of the foreigners were not very well justified by 
the facts of the existing situation. China had treated the 
Japanese mission with scant courtesy and had made few 
concessions. Meanwhile the Japanese were becoming con- 
vinced that the hostility of the Koreans was being inspired 
from Peking. A still more delicate situation was growing 
up over the possession of the Lew Chew Islands. 

When the feudal nobles surrendered their powers to the 
Mikado after the Restoration, the rights of the Prince of 
Satsuma in the Lew Chew Islands were forthwith trans- 
ferred to the Crown. The nature of these rights cannot 
easily be defined. Hitherto they had involved nothing more 
/han the payment of annual tribute. f The Japanese Gov- 
/ernment now interpreted them to involve Japanese sov- 
ereignty. An order was issued (September, 1872) to the 
king of the Lew Chews to appear in Tokio to announce his 
accession to the throne and to congratulate tl^ Japanese 

♦This reference to free social intercourse is rather amusing in view of the 
fact that both in China and in Japan in all social functions the foreigners had 
adopted the policy of rigidly excluding both Chinese and Japanese from their 
society^" 

fPor Commodore Perry's opinion on the political status of the Lew Chews, 
see pp. 268, 272.=" 



FIRST STEPS IN JAPANESE EXPANSION 439 

upon the establishment of the new government. The king- 
dom of the Lew Chews was formally incorporated into the 
Japanese Empire, the king being reduced to the rank of 
Japanese prince and given a pension of 30,000 yen. Japan 
assumed the responsibilities incurred by the Lew Chewans 
under their treaties with the foreign powers, and the latter 
accepted the new status of the islands,-^ China, however, 
protested at what appeared to them nothing less than a 
high-handed piece of robbery. 

In the estimation of the Chinese the Japanese added 
insult to injury not many months after this when the latter 
made a claim on China for reparations for some Lew Chew 
sailors who had been wrecked on the coast of Formosa and 
murdered by the aboriginal inhabitants. The claim was 
based on the ground that these sailors were subjects of 
Japan. 

Japan thus arrived in the latter part of 1872 at a very 
alarming situation, Russia was clinging tenaciously to Sak- 
halin, Korea was insulting, China was aggrieved. There 
was also a most disturbed condition of domestic affairs. 
The ablest Japanese leaders had been dispatched on the 
famous Embassy to the Western powers with the hope of 
securing a revision of the treaties, and at home the samaurai, 
recently disestablished and accorded a financial settlement 
which proved a most unsatisfactory solace to men whose 
profession was arms, were in a bellicose mood which pre- 
saged either civil or foreign war. The Korean insults which 
had been followed by the prohibition of all trade, and the 
unavenged death of the Lew Chew sailors afforded an oppor- 
tunity for the harassed government to divert the attention 
of the unhappy soldiery from a civil war which would 
paralyze all the recently inaugurated domestic reforms. 

Minister De Long reported from Tokio in the latter part 
of November, 1872, that Japan was about to embark upon 
a most ambitious military program. The Koreans were to 
be punished for their persistent refusal to pay tribute as 
well as for the insults rendered; an expedition was to be 
undertaken to Formosa to punish the aborigines; and an 



440 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

embassy was to be dispatched to Peking which would be 
authorized to demand an audience with the Emperor and to 
threaten war on China in case the audience was denied, 
De Long was unable to resist the intrigues of an oriental 
court and found a great deal of satisfaction in giving the 
Japanese an extraordinary degree of sympathy and assis- 
tance in the execution of these rash purposes.* 

In the latter part of November, 1872, C. W. Le Gendre, 
United States consul at Amoy since 1862, happened to pass 
through Japan on his way home on leave. He had taken a 
prominent part in the American expedition to Formosa in 
1868 following the wreck of the bark Rover, and claimed to 
have a considerable amount of military experience. De 
Long introduced Le Gendre to the Japanese authorities who 
immediately recognized him as a valuable assistant in the 
proposed negotiations with China and the expedition against 
Formosa. Le Gendre advised the Japanese that the Chinese 
Government did not exercise sovereignty over that portion 
of Formosa where the Lew Chew sailors had been murdered. 
He assured them that a small expeditionary force sent to 
Formosa could easily effect a landing and that, once estab- 
lished, it would be very difficult to dislodge them. The 
Japanese engaged Le Gendre as counsellor to the proposed 
mission to Peking, agreed to make him a general in the 
Japanese army in case of war with Formosa, and held out 
the inducement that in case Japan were to remain perma- 
nently in Formosa, Le Gendre would be made governor of 
the island. De Long felt much gratified at the arrangement 
which, it seemed to him, would still farther separate Japan 
from China, avert civil war in Japan, and place Formosa 
and possibly Korea, under "a flag of a nation in sympathy 
with the Western powers." ^'^ Into the details of the em- 
bassy to Peking it is not possible to go although it con- 
stitutes one of the most amusing as well as significant epi- 
sodes in the history of Japanese relations with China. ^^ 
Soyeshima, with a diplomatic rank superior to that of any 

*When the full extent of De Long's activities became known in Washington 
the next year, he was .immediately recalled. 



FIRST STEPS IN JAPANESE EXPANSION 441 

diplomatic resident in Peking, with a large suite, clothed 
in Western dress, attended by Le Gendre as Counsellor, and^ 
accompanied by two war vessels, appeared in China in 
March, 1873. The ostensible purpose of the mission was to 
exchange ratifications of the treaty of 1871. The intent was 
to secure the assent of China to the annexation of the Lew 
Chews, to the expedition against Formosa, and also to 
secure from China a disclaimer of sovereignty over Korea. 
Li Hung Chang at Tientsin was disposed to receive the 
mission with contempt, and the foreign representatives at 
Peking were almost equally scornful. The Japanese insisted 
upon the most exact observance of international law, espe- 
cially in the matter of diplomatic rank, thus claiming for 
Soyeshima as ambassador a precedence over the representa- 
tives of the foreign powers who were only ministers. Le 
Gendre did not prove a help to the embassy. The diplo- 
matic negotiations, even when one accepts the Japanese 
account of them, could hardly be called straight-forward. 
The mission failed to secure Chinese assent to the annexa- 
tion of the Lew Chews ; but it did secure as definite a 
waiving of responsibility for Korea as had been given to 
Mr. Low in 1871, and the evasive answers of the Chinese 
with respect to Formosa were such as to give the Japanese at 
least a shadow of permission for the proposed expedition.* 

Incidentally Soyeshima forced the audience question to 
an issue when it was hanging in suspense and while he was 
in Peking the entire diplomatic body was for the first time 
received in audience by the Emperor, Soyeshima being 
accorded precedence over all the other representatives. 

The maturing bellicose plans of Japan now experienced 
an interruption from within. The Iwakura Embassy while 
in Europe heard of the proposed plans and were in dismay. 

* Japan confronted*' China with the principle of international law thatK 
sovereignty over territory was not to be recognized where the power claiming 
sovereignty did not exercise the functions of government. To this claim China 
replied with a quotation from her classics which she understood better than 
international law. "Formosa is an island lying far off amidst the sea," wrote 
Prince Kung to the ministers of the Japanese Department of Foreign Affairs, 
May 14, 1S74, "and we have never restrained the savages living there by any 
legislation, nor have we established any government over them, following in 
this a maxim mentioned in the Rei Ri: 'Do not change the usages of a people, 
but allow them to keep their good ones.' But the territories inhabited by these 
savages are truly within the jurisdiction of China." ^^ 



442 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

They had seen enough of European poHtics to reahze that 
Asia would not be left undisturbed in the fighting of its own 
battles and they hastened home to plead for peace. Im- 
mediately upon their return there was a division in the cab- 
inet between peace and war, and the issue was submitted to 
the Emperor. The arguments for peace were overwhelm- 
ing: Japan was without an army and the only way in which 
one could be raised was to ask for contributions of soldiers 
for the ex-daimios whose return to power would be an ob- 
struction to the newly organized government; the Empire 
lacked the necessary money; and then there were the 
Western powers to be considered. Okubo, one of the mem- 
bers of the Iwakura Mission, pointed out this danger, in 
effect, as follows: 

"Of all the foreign powers Russia is the most to be feared, and her 
southward movement is well known ; so that if Japan and Korea fight 
with one another, both will fall an easy prey to Russia. 

"England is also a powerful nation, from whom Japan has already 
borrowed much money, so that if Japan and Korea fight and we can- 
not pay the interest in consequence of the war, she would make it a 
pretext for interfering in our internal afi^airs, thus making Japan 
another India." ^^ 

The young Emperor cast his vote for peace. This 
action enraged the war-seeking daimios, one of whom had 
been so eager for war with Korea that he had offered to go 
to the peninsula and expose himself to further insults and 
even death to provide the Japanese with a sufficient excuse 
for a declaration of war. But the Emperor's decision had 
not avoided the issue of war. If a foreign war were not to 
be permitted, then civil war would ensue. In the spring 
of 1874 Japan decided to carry out the Formosan expedition. 

Formosa, the Lew Chews and Korea 

The Formosan Expedition was organized in April, 1874. 
Two Americans in addition to Le Gendre were engaged in it 
and an American steamer was secured as a transport. As 
soon as the true nature of the expedition became known the 
American Government requested that the Americans be 



FIRST STEPS IN JAPANESE EXPANSION 443 

detached from it, and the AmeFscan steamer returned to its 
owners. There was much excitement along the coast of 
China. Le Gendre was arrested by the American consul at 
Amoy and sent to Shanghai. The Japanese effected a land- 
ing early in May, and showed every intention of remaining 
in possession of the eastern portion of the island. In Octo- 
ber, 1874, a Japanese envoy arrived in Peking to settle the 
Formosa dispute. There was a war of words and then a 
rupture of the negotiations. As the Japanese envoy was 
about to leave Peking Dr. S. Wells Williams suggested arbi- 
tration, but the envoy stated that the matter was 'too com- 
plicated' for arbitration. 2^ 

But the Japanese were not to be permitted to settle the 
Formosan affair in their own way. Sir Thomas Wade, the 
British Minister, had already, so it is believed, intimated to 
the Japanese that Great Britain would not view the Jap- 
anese occupation of Formosa with satisfaction owing to the 
close trade relations of Formosa with the British merchants 
in China, and now he intervened and became mediator of 
the dispute. An agreement was signed October 31, 1874.^^ 

In the treaty between China and Japan in 1874, for the 
settlement of the Formosan trouble, Japan cleverly inserted 
the following sentence: ''The raw barbarians of Formosa 
once unlawfully inflicted injury on the people belonging to 
Japan, and the Japanese Government with the intention of 
making the said barbarians answer for their acts sent troops 
to chastize them." The treaty also stated that Japan had 
acted justly in the matter. Thus Japan cut the ground from 
under the Chinese claims of suzerainty over the Lew Chews, 
for the people referred to as belonging to Japan were Lew 
Chew sailors. The Chinese claim, in the judgment of the 
Japanese, no longer had a standing in international law, 
and when the Chinese discovered the way in which they had 
been outwitted, they fell back on sullen defiance. In 1879 
the Lew Chew prince was still further reduced by the 
Japanese because his emissaries had been seeking the good 
offices of the American and other ministers in Tokio, with a 
view to having the old relationship to China restored. The 



444 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

American Government had contented itself, when Japan 
formally annexed the islands, with the assurances that 
American rights would in no way be disturbed, and never 
interfered with the program of Japan; it regarded the con- 
troversy as purely between China, the King of the Lew 
Chews, and Japan. 

The points of irritation between China and Japan mul- 
tiplied after the Formosan affair in 1874, and when General 
Grant visited Peking in 1879 the two nations were on the 
point of war. Grant saw very clearly that the European 
nations might seize the opportunity to enhance their own 
interests. It was therefore a matter of satisfaction to Gen- 
eral Grant when the Chinese proposed and the Japanese 
agreed to submit the Lew Chew question to his mediation. 

After many conferences with the Chinese in Peking and 
a thorough review of the question in Tokio, General Grant 
wrote a letter, August 18, 1879, to Prince Kung which, be- 
fore being sent was shown to the Emperor of Japan and 
received his approval.^^ In this letter Grant made the 
following proposals: (1) China to withdraw certain threat- 
ening and menacing dispatches which had been addressed to 
Japan on the subject; (2) each country to appoint a com- 
mission, and the two commissions to confer on the subject; 
(3) no foreign power to be brought into the discussion, but 
in case the commissions could not agree they might appoint 
an arbitrator whose decisions should be binding on both 
Japan and China. General Grant then took the opportunity 
to point out to China the necessity for peace. His language 
is interesting for its earnestness and as an indication of 
General Grant's conclusions on the impending conflict in 
Asia. He wrote: 

"In the vast East, embracing more than two thirds of the human 
population of the world there are but two nations even partially free 
from the domination and dictation of some one or other of the Euro- 
pean Powers, with strength enough to maintain their independence — 
Japan and China are the two nations. The people of both are brave, 
intelligent, frugal and industrious. With a little more advancement 
in modern civilization, mechanics, engineering, etc., they could throw 
off the offensive treaties which now cripple and humiliate them, and 
could enter into competition for the world's commerce. . . . 



FIRST STEPS IN JAPANESE EXPANSION 445 

"Japan is now rapidly reaching a condition of independence, and 
if it had now to be done over, such treaties as exist could not be forced 
upon her. What Japan has done, and is now doing, China has the 
power — and I trust the inclination — to do. I can readily conceive 
that there are many foreigners, particularly those interested in trade, 
who do not look beyond the present and who would like to have the 
present condition remain, only grasping more from the East, and 
leaving the natives of the soil merely 'hewers of wood and drawers 
of water' for their benefit. I have so much sympathy for the good 
of their children, [the foreigners] if not for them, that I hope the 
two countries will disappoint them." 

It has been stated, and probably correctly, that General 
Grant went even so far as to recommend that Japan and 
China form an alliance against the Western powers.* 

Both nations accepted Grant's proposal and the two 
commissions met in Peking. After three months' discus- 
sion they arrived at a settlement according to which the 
islands were to be divided. f However, on the day fixed for 
the signatures China suddenly withdrew the question from 
the commission and referred it to the Chinese superin- 
tendents of trade of the northern and southern districts.^^ 
"A glaring instance of international treachery" on the part 
of China, the North China Daily News (January 27, 1883) 
called it, but it was subsequently discovered that Japan, not 
content with the settlement of the Lew Chew question by 
its self, had, at the last minute, insisted upon the inclusion 
in the agreement of some additional provisions opening new 
ports and trading privileges in China to Japan. 

China had been predisposed to settle the matter in 1880 
because of the strained relations with Russia, although the 
surrender of Chinese territory to a foreign power during 
the minority of the emperor was a risk such as few Chinese 
statesmen would have dared to assume. As soon as the 
trouble with Russia was over, the Lew Chew question again 

*The Government of the United States feared that the good ofBces of the 
United States were being accepted by the two powers under a misapprehension 
that General Grant in some way officially represented the United States, and 
instructed its representatives to make clear that he had acted in an entirely 
personal capacity.^o 

fit has been frequently stated " that General Grant himself proposed the 
partition of the islands between China and Japan. As a matter of fact, the 
most important point in the mediation by General Grant was that China and 
Japan should, if possible, settle their own disputes without the admission of 
any European into the controversy. 



446 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

became the subject of great irritation. Li Hung Chang out- 
lined China's position as follows: China would not under 
any circumstances consent to the destruction of the au- 
tonomy of the islands, or the division of them between 
Japan and China. He desired that the islands should be re- 
stored to their original conditions of tributary state to both 
China and Japan. Failing this, he thought China would 
agree to enter into treaty stipulations with Japan by which 
both powers would guarantee the absolute independence of 
the Lew Chews. ^^ 

In 1882 Li Hung Chang was not unwilling to fight Japan 
for the possession of the islands and war seemed imminent. 
The international situation remained the same. A war 
between China and Japan would be destructive to the best 
interests of both nations, and also detrimental to the inter- 
ests of the United States. John Russell Young, then Ameri- 
can minister in Peking, who as a newspaper correspondent 
had accompanied General Grant around the world, and who 
was also on very intimate terms with Li Hung Chang, 
strongly urged the Viceroy not to enter into hostilities with 
Japan. The question had passed beyond the stage where it 
might be controlled by considerations of justice. China had 
signed away her rights in the treaty of 1874. Japan had 
formally annexed the islands and had been administering 
them for several years. But more important even was the 
fact that China was in no condition to enter a war. Peace 
at any price was the only safe policy for the Empire. 

The Lew Chew question was soon lost in the greater 
problem which confronted China in the aggressions of 
France upon her southern border, and the annexation of the 
Lew Chews by Japan became a jait accompli. 

^ Meanwhile Japan had accomplished the first step of her 
program in Korea. 

In September, 1875, a Japanese surveying party was 
fired on while surveying the Korean coast near the mouth 
of the Han River. Immediately General Kuroda and Gen- 
eral Inouye were sent to Korea to settle the matter. At the 
same time an envoy was sent to Peking. The envoy to 



FIRST STEPS IN JAPANESE EXPANSION 447 

Peking again secured a disclaimer of any Chinese responsi- 
bility for Korea, and became convinced that China would 
not interfere so long as Japan did not take any Korean 
territory. Japan therefore decided to be content with 
merely opening the country, and found inspiration and sug- 
gestions for the role in the way Commodore Perry had 
opened Japan. Without bloodshed, but in the presence of 
an imposing naval and military force, Korea was led to make 
a treaty with Japan at Kang-hoa February 27, 1876. 

The Treaty of Kang-hoa was Japan's entering wedge on 
the mainland of Asia. Its most important provision was 
contained in the first article : "Chosen, being an independ- 
ent state, enjoys the same sovereign rights as does Nip- 
pon." ^" Thus the first step was taken; Korea was led, 
adroitly, to disavow Chinese suzerainty. The treaty also 
provided for the opening of several ports, acknowledged 
Japan's right to make surveys of the coast, stipulated that 
consular and diplomatic relations could be established and 
granted to Japan extraterritoriality in criminal matters. In 
general the treaty was unilateral, and similar to those which 
the foreign powers had imposed upon both China and 
Japan. 

"The treaty of 1876," states a Japanese historian, "was the first 
clear announcement of Japan's foreign policy as regards Korea. The 
policy of annexation, though not impossible to carry out, was from 
the very first rejected in view of the possible conflict with China (and 
later with Russia also) ; but neither China nor any other nation was 
to be allowed to substantiate its claim of suzerainty over Korea on 
the ground of free competition." ^^ ^i 

BIRLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

1. Satah, Lord Hotta, p. 74, cited by Treat: "Early Diplomatic 

Relations," pp. 99-100. 

2. W. W. McLaren : "Political Hist, of Japan," p. 35. 

3. James W. Davidson: "The Island of Formosa" (1903), particu- 

larly chaps. 9-13. 

4. Foreign Relations, 1880, pp. 194 ff, Dee. 11, 1879, Seward to 

Secretary of State; 1875, p. 786, Feb. 9, 1875, Bingham to 
Secretary of State. 

5. W. W. Rockhill : "China's Intercourse with Korea from the 

Fifteenth Century to 1895." 



448 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

6. Griffis : "Hermit Kingdom," pp. 58, 159, 372. 

7. Stead : p. 150. 

8. Japan Desp. Vol. 4, Oct. 7, 1861 ; for Seward's answer see Japan 

Instructions, Vol. 1, Feb. 5, 1862. 

9. Stead : pp. 149 ft'., give a history of the Sakhalin controversy. 

10. William H. Seward's "Travels Around the World," p. 58. 

11. Japan Desp. Vol. 13, Jan. 11, 1870; Japan Instr. Vol. 1, Jan. 17, 

1871; Russia Instr., Nov. 11, 1870; Russia Disp., Dee. 9, 1870. 

12. Stead: p. 175. 

13. The Benjamin Pease, referred to in Misc. H. Doc. 31 :45-2, p. 12, 

pp. 32, 66, 200 ft., made his headquarters in the Bonin Islands. 

14. Dip. Corres., 1864, III, p. 518; Treat, op. cit, pp. 309, 344. 

15. For. Relations, 1874, pp. 635, 637. 

16. Dip. Corres., 1867, I, np. 419 £E. 

17. Dip. Corres., 1867, II, p. 36. 

18. Dip. Corres., 1868, p. 634. 

19. Stead: p. 148. 

20. Japan Gazette, July 18, 1872, reprinted in Japan WeeTcly Mail. 

21. China Desp., Vol. 30, Aug. 3, 1871. 

22. Stead : p. 154. 

23. Martens' "Recueil de Traites," 61, p. 502, gives the Japanese 

form of this article. The treaties published by the Maritime 
Customs give the longer form of the article in which a defi- 
nite defensive alliance is provided for. This is the first 
instance, of which there have been others in more recent 
years, where the Japanese and Chinese texts of agreements 
between the two nations do not agree. 

24. Japan Desp., Vol. 18, July 6, 1871. 

25. For. Relations, 1873, p. 567; see also Japan Instr., Vol. 1, Aug. 

24, 1871. 

26. See accounts of receptions to W. H. Seward in "Travels Around 

the World." 

27. S. Ex. Doc. 34:33-2 (Perry Corres.), pp. 139, 143, 168. 

28. For. Relations, 1873, pp. 553, 564. 

29. Japan Desp., Vol. 21, Nov. 22, 1872. 

30. While there are references to the Soyeshima Embassy in the 

despatches of Low to Fish (For. Relations, 1873, pp. 177, 186 
et seq.) the most interesting account, evidently based on 
Japanese documentary sources or reminiscences, is found in 
Stead, pp. 159 ff. 

31. China Desp., Vol. 36, Aug. 22, 1874, Williams to Fish. 

32. Stead : p. 166. 

33. China Desp., Vol. 37, Oct. 29, 1874. 

34. P. P. China No. 2 (1875) Corres. resp. settlement of difficulties 

bet. China and Japan ; Further Corres. presented Mar. 9, 1875 ; 
For. Relations, 1875, p. 221, Williams to Fish, Nov. 12, 1874. 

35. China Desp., Vol. 61, Oct. 9, 1882, Young to Frelinghuysen ; 

John Russell Young: "Men and Memories," Vol. 2, p. 294; 
"Around the World with General Grant," Vol. 2, pp. 410-12; 
415; 543-6; 558-60 "The Loochoo Islands," by Charles S. Leav- 
enworth, p. 159 ff., gives extracts from Li Hung Chang's Let- 



FIRST STEPS IN JAPANESE EXPANSION 449 

ters and Despatches on the Lew Chews. These documents are 
not in agreement with Mr. Young's account in several details. 

36. Tor. Eolations, 1881, p. 243, Apr. 4, 1881. 

37. Robert P. Porter : "Japan, the Rise of a Modern Power," p. 119 ; 

Morse: "International Relations," Vol. II, p. 322, and many 
others. 

38. For. Relations, 1881, p. 229; see also 1873, pp. 188, 553, 564; 

1879, p. 637 ; 1880, p. 194. 

39. "Secret Memoirs of Count Tadasu Hayashi," Appendix A, pp. 

316 ff. ; China Desp., Vol. 58, Nov. 19, 1881. 

40. Stead : p. 177, contains summary of contents with comments 

of Japanese historian. 

41. Ihid., p. 179. 



[ CHAPTER XXIV 

THE UNITED STATES AND KOEEA— TEEATY OE 1882 

The preceding chapter on Japanese expansion closed, 
not because a convenient date had been reached, but because 
it is now necessary to describe another line of activity be- 
fore going on with the account of Japan's efforts to consoli- 
date a satisfactory territorial position in Asia. In taking 
the next step in Korea Japan was greatly aided by the 
desire of Western nations, particularly the United States, to 
see the peninsula opened to trade. 

The movement to open Korea, first seriously initiated 
by William H. Seward in 1868 and accomplished in 1882 
by Commodore R. W. Shufeldt, was by far the most im- 
portant political action undertaken by the United States 
in Asia until the occupation of the Philippines in 1898. 
To disturb Korea in any way was to disturb the equilibrium 
of the Far East. By the treaty of 1876 in which Korea was 
led to disavow Chinese suzerainty, a balance had been estab- 
lished between China and Japan. The transcending politi- 
cal question for the Western nations was whether to recog- 
nize the contention thus set up by Japan that Korea was 
independent, or to continue to accept the evasive utter- 
ances of China as implying the existence of Chinese suze- 
ranity. 

Expediency of Disturbing the Status Quo 

One is forced to the conclusion from a study of the 
declarations of both Chinese statesmen and Korean leaders 
of the time that there was involved for the Western nations 
no question of political righteousness. Notwithstanding 
the unconvincing nature of the disavowals of Chinese 

450 



UNITED STATES AND KOREA— TREATY OF 1882 451 

sovereignty, China in 1876 had no valid claim to Korea. 
Peking exercised no administrative functions and had re- 
peatedly denied any control of Korean affairs. The Chinese 
had disavowed any responsibility for claims arising out of 
the damage to foreign life and property in the peninsula; 
they undertook no measures whatever to prevent shipwrecks 
or the recurrence of such events as the murder of the French 
missionaries. Even when one gives to the Chinese asser- 
tions of the subordinations of Korea to the Empire a value 
unmodified by the accompanying disavowals of responsi- 
bility, one is forced to the conclusion that the Chinese were 
pursuing merely a dog-in-the-manger policy. They did not 
want Korea, but they did not want Korea to come under 
the shadow of any other power, nor did they relish the idea 
of Korean independence. Likewise Japan had not the 
shadow of a claim to possession of Korea. Japan's clainis 
were purely economic. In a measure Japan was dependent 
upon Korea for food-stuffs. To admit that the economic 
dependence of one nation upon another constitutes a valid 
claim for territorial possession by the dependent country is 
to admit a proposition which renders insecure the bounda- 
ries of most of the nations of the earth. 

On the other hand, there was in the existing relationship 
between Japan and Korea a question of political expediency 
for the Western nations, which merited a greater degree of 
study than was given to it by American statesmen in their 
various efforts to enter into treaty relationship with the 
Korean people. For Korea there were four possibilities: 
Chinese suzerainty; Japanese suzerainty; the suzerainty of 
some European power such as France or of Russia ; or, politi- 
cal independence. In framing a policy to meet such an un- 
certain situation the Americans could bring forward two 
traditional ^^and characteristically American policies : the 
United States had already registered its disapproval of the 
advance of European powers in Asia, and was committed to 
a policy of recognizing and even sustaining in a feeble way 
the independence of the Asiastic states; and, Americans 
were prone to hold that every people, with the exception of 



452 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

the American Indians, were and by right ought to be free 
and independent. 

Among the four possibilities enumerated above the 
question of the future status of Korea was purely one of 
expediency. The Koreans, at least their rulers, were bitterly 
anti-foreign. They were disposed to adhere to a blind and 
irrational policy of seclusion. That they did not desire to 
be subjected to any Western power was obvious. That they 
would not welcome Japanese domination was equally evi- 
dent. Where they stood as between Chinese suzerainty and 
political independence was not clear when the Americans 
came to consider the question of a treaty. Obviously the 
United States was under no obligations to consider them 
independent if they did not so desire. But at this point 
another question intervened : which was better for American 
trade, Chinese suzerainty or Korean independence? Korea 
under the shadow of China presumably would resist rather 
than encourage foreign trade and domestic renovation. This 
consideration appears to have had influence. That a condi- 
tion of technical independence, undefended and defenseless, 
might be worse than Chinese suzerainty, seems never to 
have occurred to the American Government. 

There were three possible ways to approach Korea: 
directly, through Japan, or through China. The United 
States tried them all impartially, moved by a single desire to 
make a treaty and to open the country. 

Direct negotiations were, as we have already noted, 
authorized by William H. Seward in 1868.^ Had the Jap- 
anese succeeded in 1868 or 1869 in establishing friendly 
relations with the Koreans it is very probable that the 
Government of the United States would have accepted the 
Japanese invitation, as the German representative at Tokio 
did, and would have sought an entrance into Korea by 
means of Japanese good offices. The failure of the Japanese 
negotiations, however, induced the American Government 
to make its next effort through Peking. 

The correspondence between U. S. Minister Low and 
the Tsung-li Yamen at Peking in 1870-1 has already been 



I 



tJNiTED STATES AND KOREA— TREATY OF 1882 453 

alluded to. The details of the visit of the Americans to 
Korea in 1871 were as follows: 

The expedition under the joint direction of Mr, Low 
and Admiral John Rogers was designed to be carried out 
after the pattern of the"^ Perry visit to Japan in 1853. It 
was as much of a failure as most imitations are. With a 
fleet of five steamships the Americans arrived off the coast 
on May 19, 1871, and a few days later came to anchor in 
the Salee River below Seoul. Communications with the 
shore were opened through some minor officials who visited 
the ship but the objects of the expedition were not revealed. 
Shortly afterwards a Korean fort fired on a surveying party 
which had proceeded up the river, and in the engagement 
which took place two Americans were wounded, and many 
Koreans were killed or wounded. Mr. Low demanded an 
apology which was not forthcoming. The Americans then 
resorted to retaliation, destroying five forts and killing or 
wounding 350 Koreans. Again Low demanded communica- 
tions with high officials with a view to making a treaty, but 
now the Koreans were stubborn and refused to forward 
Low's letters to the King. The Americans were thus pre- 
sented with a choice between further military measures or 
retirement. Not being prepared, or authorized, to under- 
take the conquest of Korea, Rear Admiral Rogers, like his 
predecessor, the French Admiral Roze in 1866, decided to 
retire, which he did on July 3.- 

Korea was again left in the belief that the foreigners 
had been compelled to retreat before her army, and the 
expedition was looked upon by the Chinese also as a defeat 
for foreigners. The outcome of the expedition was regretted 
by the foreign communities because it tended to lower the 
prestige of the foreign powers in Asia at a time when the 
Chinese were stiffening their opposition to the revision of 
the treaties. The expedition reflected no credit on the 
Americans. 



454 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

The United States Inclines to Japan 

The developments of the next few years materially 
altered the situations of both China and Japan with refer- 
ence to the peninsula. Mr, Low became persuaded that the 
Chinese Government had been acting with duplicity, and 
that while professing indifference it had secretly exerted its 
influence to thwart the expedition. Meanwhile other factors 
were at work to mar the relations between the Chinese and 
the foreigners. While the Americans had regarded the 
murder of the French Catholic converts in the Tientsin 
massacre in 1870 as due more to the rashness and unscrupu- 
lous conduct of the French than to the savagery of the 
.'Chinese, the murder of the British envoy, Margery, on the 
Burmah border in 1875, had been a shock to the entire 
I foreign body in China and a sinister reminder of the fact 
/ that China tolerated the foreigners only because their armies 
and navies protected them. The persecution of Christians 
i and missionaries was increasing. Furthermore the Chinese 
' immigration question in California was becoming acute. 
As an indication of the attitude of American public opinion 
we may cite the fact that although Congress had extended 
permission to the Japanese students to enter the naval 
academy at Annapolis, the repeated requests of the Chinese 
Government for a similar courtesy had been ignored.^ 

Japan, on the other hand, was steadily rising in the 
estimation of Americans. The first steps in the expansive 
movement noted in the preceding chapter had provoked ad- 
miration, although those who knew the details of the Jap- 
anese negotiations in Peking regarded them as treacherous. 
Meanwhile the Japanese efforts at domestic reform had won 
the approval of the American Government to such an extent 
that in 1878 Secretary of State William H. Evarts was 
willing to sign a revision of the treaty of 1866. 

While De Long had been recalled from Tokio for his 
indiscretions, his contention had come to be accepted by the 
American Government, viz., that Japan held the key by 
which to unlock the East. Soyeshima in Peking in 1873 



UNITED STATES AND KOREA— TREATY OF 1882 455 

had forced the Chinese to abandon a most cherished tradi- 
tion and secured for the diplomatic corps an audience with 
the Emperor in which no kotow had been exacted. Three 
years later Japan had succeeded in negotiating a treaty with 
Korea in which several ports were thrown open to Japanese 
trade. Although the European powers and the foreign 
diplomats in China were most reluctant to realize and 
admit it, Japan was, in the opinion of America, rapidly 
achieving the leadership of Eastern Asia.* 

The Japanese were exerting themselves to gain this 
very recognition. Japanese policy was being directed 
towards inducing the foreign powers to deal with Korea 
through Japan. An article supplementary to the treaty of 
August 24, 1876, had stipulated that in case any foreigners 
were wrecked on the coast of Korea they were to be deliv- 
ered to the Japanese authorities who would assume respon- 
sibility for their repatriation.^ This article was obviously 
intended to transfer to Japan a relationship which had 
formerly existed between Korea and China. In 1866 the 
crew of the Surprise had been repatriated across the Chinese 
border and by the agency of Chinese officials. 

The next American effort to open Korea was made by 
Commodore R. W. Shufeldt who had commanded the U. 
S. S. Wachusetts which visited Korea in 1866-7 to investi- 
gate the General Sherman affair. Shufeldt's instructions 
from R. W. Thompson, Secretary of the Navy, were dated 
October 29, 1878, and to them were added a letter from 
Secretary of State Evarts to Thompson, dated November 
9, 1878 — a little more than three months after the conclu- 
sion of the new treaty with Japan. 

Evarts expressed no great interest in the opening of 
Korea. So far as he knew there had been no material 
change in the prospects since 1871. He drew attention to 
the provision of the treaty of 1876 relating to the return of 
shipwrecked seamen by way of Japan as possibly indicating 

* Perhaps the decisive factor in inclining American policy toward Japan, 
was the influence of General Grant who had, in 1879, been more favorably 
impressed by the Japanese. Grant's visit to the Bast may be reckoned as a 
very important date in the history of American policy in Asia. 



456 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

an "intimacy between those two countries which may be 
taken advantage of" and stated that he would be glad to 
have Shufeldt investigate and report as to whether Korea 
would be willing to make a treaty "similar in spirit and 
purpose to those already in existence with other oriental 
countries." Thompson directed Shufeldt, in the course of 
a cruise in the U. S. S. Ticonderoga which was to include 
visits to unfrequented parts of Africa, Asia, and the islands 
of the Indian Ocean and adjacent seas, to "visit some part 
of Korea with the endeavor to open by peaceful measures 
negotiations with that government. It is believed that the 
attack upon the Korean forts in 1871 is susceptible of satis- 
factory explanation and that a moderate and conciliatory 
course towards the government would result in opening the 
ports of that country to American commerce." ^ That the 
American Government was aware in thus resuming the 
efforts to open Korea that it was taking any step of impor- 
tance is not apparent. 

In April, 1880, Commodore Shufeldt in the Ticonderoga 
reached Nagasaki. His appearance and mission took the 
Japanese by surprise. United States Minister John A. 
Bingham had been instructed to invite the Japanese Gov- 
ernment to give to Shufeldt suitable letters of introduction 
to the Korean authorities. The Japanese hesitated. 
Foreign Minister Inouye stated that the Japanese Govern- 
ment was reluctant to disturb the Koreans at a time when 
its own relations with them were still so largely unsettled. 
The best that Bingham was able to secure was a letter of 
introduction to the Japanese consul at Fusan. 

Shufeldt arrived at Fusan May 4, 1880, and immediately 
attempted to send a letter to the King of Korea through 
the Japanese consul. The consul reported that the governor 
of the district refused to forward the letter. Shufeldt then 
returned to Japan and went personally to Tokio. With no 
little reluctance Inouye was persuaded to send Shufeldt's 
letter with one of his own to the King of Korea, on the 
condition that Shufeldt would remain at Nagasaki for an 
answer. Thus the Americans were made to appear as 



UNITED STATES AND KOREA— TREATY OF 1882 457 

though they were dealing with Korea through Japanese 
channels. This second attempt failed as dismally as the 
first, and in the reply of the Korean minister of ceremony 
there appeared the following sentence which was so lacking 
in truth as to raise suspicions as to its origin : 

"It is well known to the world that our foreign relations are only 
with Japan, neighboring to us, which have been maintained since three 
hundred years, and that other foreign nations are not only situated 
far from us, but there has never been any intercourse with them." " 

It was reasonably clear to Shufeldt that Japan was 
actuated by no earnest desire to have the trade of Korea 
thrown open to the world, and that the Japanese were 
manipulating the negotiations to serve their own purpose. 

Shufeldt and the Good Offices of Li Hung Chang 

While Shufeldt was waiting at Nagasaki for his answer 
from Korea his presence and purpose was made known to 
Li Hung Chang at Tientsin, To the Viceroy the news was, 
probably, somewhat alarming. China was then on the verge 
of war with Russia. In the prospective conflict China would 
be helpless as General Gordon, who was summoned to give 
advice because of his success in the Taiping Rebellion, 
bluntly advised Li Hung Chang. The presence of Shufeldt 
in Japan could only be interpreted as meaning that the 
American Government, approving the treaty of 1876 in 
which the Chinese suzerainty over Korea was not acknowl- 
edged, was about to throw the weight of its influence on 
the side of Japan in the controversy over Korea. Thus 
China was menaced directly by Russia and also, so it ap- 
peared, by a combination of Japan and the United States, 
and as a result of either of these dangers China might lose 
its position in the peninsula. Chinese diplomacy, however, 
was by no means unequal to such a situation, and Li Hung 
Chang lost no time in inviting Shufeldt with very flattering 
words to come to Tientsin. The Commodore, stung by what 
he believed to be Japanese duplicity, was quite willing to 
accept the invitation. Li assured Shufeldt that he would 



458 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

use his influence to secure a treaty from Korea, and then 
dangled before the commodore's eyes the possibihty of a 
position in the Chinese navy. Thus the astute Viceroy 
scored a victory against Japan, and diverted the United 
States to dealing with Korea through China. As for the 
American Government, its purpose was merely to get results. 
That in some way it was being made use of first by Japan 
and then by China appears to have received no thoughtful 
consideration. 

Having received from the Viceroy the assurance of his 
good offices, Commodore Shufeldt returned to the United 
States in the Ticonderoga. In March, 1881, Shufeldt was 
ordered to special duty at the U. S. Legation at Peking, 
under instructions from both the Secretary of the Navy and 
the Secretary of State. The latter requested the American 
minister, James B. Angell, to facilitate in any way possible 
the appointment of Shufeldt to the Chinese navy, and Shu- 
feldt was instructed to follow up the promises of Li Hung 
Chang. Shufeldt arrived in China in June, 1881, and estab- 
lished himself at Tientsin. 

Notwithstanding the fact that the cooperative policy 
which had been inaugurated under Burlingame was still 
supposed to be in force it was not understood among the 
foreign representatives that cooperation could be expected 
to include assistance to any one nation in securing for its 
nationals any of the influential positions in the Chinese 
service, and Shufeldt quickly fell foul of the intrigues of 
various powers which did not wish to see an American placed 
in a position of such influence. So embarrassing did the 
Commodore's position at Tientsin become that he finally 
declined to have anything more to do with the Viceroy's 
proposal. It is by no means sure that Li Hung Chang had 
ever been very much in earnest about it. 

The Viceroy assured Shufeldt that he had sent a letter 
to Korea advising that a treaty be made, and requested that 
Shufeldt remain at Tientsin until a reply had been re- 
ceived.''' In December, 1881, Li was willing to make the 
treaty. The actual negotiations took place in Tientsin in 



UNITED STATES AND KOREA— TREATY OF 1882 459 

the following spring between Li Hung Chang and Shufeldt 
who was assisted by Chester Holcombe, then Charge d' Af- 
faires at Peking. The Viceroy's first draft is of peculiar 
interest because it reveals the motives of the Government 
of China in encouraging the treaty, and also shows the atti- 
tude of the Chinese with reference to their own treaties with 
foreign powers. In the first article of the treaty Li wished 
to have inserted a good-offices clause similar to that in the \ 
American treaty of Tientsin, and also the phrase : "Chosen, 
being a dependent state of the Chinese Empire, etc." In 
other articles he specified: inland trade to be reserved for 
the Koreans; importation of opium to be prohibited; 
foreigners to be permitted to rent land but with the explicit 
understanding that the land could not be alienated from 
Korea; extraterritoriality to be granted 'temporarily,' but 
Korean officials should be permitted to arrest Koreans in 
the service of foreigners; no merchant consuls; missionary 
work to be excluded; import duties to be 10 per cent on 
necessities and 30 per cent on luxuries, and the export 
duties to be 3 per cent ; the treaty to come to an end in five 
years; and the Chinese language to be used in official 
intercourse. 

Shufeldt was willing to accept many of Li's propositions 
either as they stood or with slight modifications, but he 
pointed out that for the United States to sign a treaty with 
Korea in which the latter was stated to be a dependent state 
of the Chinese Empire would be equivalent to placing Korea 
under the joint protection of China and the United States. 
This was exactly what the Viceroy desired. The Commo- 
dore explained to Li that he had no authority to enter into 
an alliance with China, and that the presence of such a 
clause in the treaty would cause its rejection in the United 
States. The Viceroy was inclined to insist upon its inclu- 
sion and at length Shufeldt, eager to accomplish the great 
purpose of his life, telegraphed (April 19, 1882) to Secretary 
of State Frelinghuysen for instructions as to whether he 
should comply with the Viceroy's stipulation. No answer 
to this request was received. Meanwhile Shufeldt reached 



460 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

a compromise with the Viceroy in which he agreed to ac- 
knowledge the dependence of Korea in two ways : he would 
write a letter to Li officially stating that he had requested 
the assistance of China in making the treaty because Korea 
was a dependency of China; he would also transmit to the 
President of the United States a letter from the King of 
Korea in which the latter stated that the treaty had been 
made by consent of the Chinese Government. 

The treaty as agreed upon was sent to Korea in a Chinese 
naval vessel and the following day Shufeldt followed in the 
U. S. S. Swatara. The compact was signed without discus- 
sion by the Korean envoys on May 22, 1882. 

A letter from the King of Korea to the President of 
the United States was then given to Shufeldt, dated two 
days before the signing of the treaty, although Li had 
promised that it should be dated after the treaty, in which 
the king made the following statement: 

"Chosen has been from ancient times a State tributary to China. 
Yet hitherto full sovereignty has been exercised by the kings of 
Chosen in all matters of internal administration and foreign rela- 
tions. Chosen and the United States in establishing by mutual con- 
sent a treaty are dealing with each other upon a basis of equality. 
The King of Korea distinctly pledges his own sovereign powers for the 
complete enforcement in good faith of all the stipulations of the treaty 
in accordance with international law. 

"As regards the various duties which devolve upon Chosen, as a 
tributary state to China, with these the United States has no con- 
cern whatever." 

Li Hung Chang had failed to accomplish his purpose. 
Indeed at the end he had been led to approve a convention 
in which the Chinese claim to suzerainty was specifically 
ignored. The two supplementary letters which he had de- 
manded were worthless. Li had evidently come to the con- 
clusion that Korea could not much longer be kept in seclu- 
sion and that regardless of Chinese pretensions, it was to 
the advantage of both Korea and China that the first treaty 
be made with the United States. Had the first treaty been 
with France, there would probably have been a religious- 
toleration clause in it such as had given so much trouble 



UNITED STATES AND KOREA— TREATY OF 1882 461 

to China; and had the first treaty been with England, it 
might have been difficult to exclude a provision for the 
legahzation of opium. The treaty would be a model for the 
others, and the United States would set a liberal standard. 
But Li Hung Chang came bitterly to regret his mistake in 
permitting the Shufeldt treaty. Indeed it was one of the 
great mistakes of his career, largely impairing his claim as a 
statesman. The treaty between Japan and Korea in 1876 
had been the first wedge to separate Korea from China ; the 
Shufeldt treaty was the second wedge, and of even greater 
importance because by it China assented to the claim first 
made by Japan six years before that Korea was as independ- 
ent as Japan. The Shufeldt treaty was a step towards the 
dismemberment of the Chinese Empire, just as surely a step 
in that direction as the treaties with England or France with 
reference to Burmah and Annam. It was an unintended 
blow dealt at the security of the Chinese Empire. 

The United States had no direct interests to serve in 
making the treaty. Secretary of State James G. Blaine 
(November 14, 1881) in the official instructions to Shufeldt 
had clearly reflected the casual attitude of the American 
Government. He wrote: 

"While no political or commercial interest renders such a treaty 
urgent, it is desirable that the ports of a country so near Japan and 
China should be opened to our trade and to the convenience of such 
vessels of our Navy as may be in those waters, and it is hoped that 
the advantages resulting from the growing and friendly relations 
between those great empires and the United States will have attracted 
the attention and awakened the interest of the Korean Government. 

"If the Government of Korea (or Chosen) is willing to open its 
ports to our commerce as China and Japan have done, we will with 
pleasure establish such friendly relations, but we do not propose to 
use force or to entreat such action." * 

On its surface the treaty appeared to be a highly benevolent 
act towards Korea for it not only opened the nation to 
Western civilization and trade but also, in a measure, re- 
moved it from the blight of Chinese restraint. But more 
closely scrutinized, and viewed in the light of history, the 
treaty is seen to have been the instrument which set Korea 



462 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

adrift on an ocean of intrigue which it was quite helpless to 
control. 

The Personal Views of Commodore Shufeldt 

The treaty is another illustration of the peculiarly per- 
sonal character of much of American policy in Asia. It 
appears to have been authorized primarily because of the 
. , ambition and importunities of Commodore Shufeldt. The 
II ambition was entirely worthy and above reproach, but it 
was hardly a sufficient justification for such a project. In 
this connection it is of importance to note an incident in the 
personal relations of the Commodore and the Viceroy which 
also throws some light on the growing anti-Chinese senti- 
ment in the United States. 

Shufeldt returned to China in 1881 well disposed 
towards the Chinese for he had before him the possibility of 
distinguished service in building up the Chinese navy as 
well as the distinction of opening up Korea. At Tientsin 
Shufeldt was rather shabbily treated. While enduring these 
affronts from the Viceroy, Shufeldt wrote to Senator A. A. 
Sargent of California a personal letter in which he expressed 
his disgust with brutal frankness. Unhappily the letter was 
published in American papers and after Shufeldt left China 
was printed widely in the East. It expressed sentiments 
greatly at variance with the generous spirit of the treaty 
with Korea. The letter is to be taken rather as significant 
of a kind of temper and disposition towards the Chinese 
which had never been entirely absent from the foreign 
settlements in China but was rarely expressed by Americans 
until the Chinese immigration trouble arose. It was, how- 
ever, typical of a growing sentiment in the United States 
which exerted an important influence in the shaping of 
American policy in both China and Korea. 

"Six months residence in this city (Tientsin)," wrote Shufeldt, 
"the political center of the Chinese Government, and an intimacy 
rather exceptional with the ruling element, has convinced me that 
deceit and untruthfulness pervade all intercourse with foreigners; 
that an ineradicable hatred exists, and that any appeal across this 



UNITED STATES AND KOREA— TREATY OF 1882 463 

barrier, either of sympathy or gratitude, is entirely idle. The only 
appeal or argument appreciated is force. . . . All sympathy will be 
construed into weakness, all pity into fear." 

Contrasting the policies of the United States with those 
of Great Britain which, thought Shufeldt, was the real ruler 
of China, he wrote : 

''The United States standing, or endeavoring to stand, upon a 
higher plane than that of mere physical force, pursues in China a 
policy of moral suasion which neither convinces nor converts the 
Chinaman to the doctrine of common brotherhood of men or nations — 
for high as the heavens are above the earth, so high is his conceit; 
as deep as the waters of the sea is the measure of his contempt for 
the 'outside barbarians.' " 

"Any high moral ground in the field of diplomacy — any appeal to 
the motives which ordinarily govern nations — indeed, any argument 
unaccompanied by the outward and visible sign of force, is used only 
for the purpose of delay, which in the end is equivalent to victory. 
Yet the United States has interests in China destined in the future 
to be greater than those of any other nation— possessing as we do 
the Pacific Ocean as a common highway — geographically with 
reference to the continent, politically with reference to each other. . . . 
Our policy therefore should be positive and governed, to the extent 
of the moral law, by American interests alone, and followed up by 
the argument which they understand — the argument of force, pressure, 
not persuasion." 

Shufeldt noted with the eye of a naval man that "all 
martial spirit has died out" of the Chinese race, and ven- 
tured the assertion that to the American form of government 
the Chinese were most antagonistic. He pointed to the 
condition of the returned Chinese students whom, he 
thought, had been made the "victims of the oriental hatred 
of popular institutions, and the innocent cause of dislike on 
the part of the mandarins for everything American." 

"Under these circumstances," he continued, "portrayed without 
prejudice, even without sentiment — I am of the earnest conviction 
that the policy of the United States in China, and towards the 
Chinese in America, should be with us as with them — purely selfish — ■ 
coming as it ought to, under the universal law of right and justice, 
but by no means governed by the fallacious idea of international 
friendship, or even the broader ground of a common brotherhood." 

It was an amazing letter, but it was far more restrained 
in its descriptions of the Chinese than were very many of 



464 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

the speeches in CaUfornia and in Congress during the ab- 
sorbing discussions of the Chinese exclusion question. It 
has been asserted that the pubhcation of this letter, coupled 
with the changes in the Department of State incident to 
the inauguration of the Arthur administration, may account 
for the fact that Shufeldt was left without an answer to his 
telegram in which he had inquired whether the American 
Government would accept a treaty with Korea in which 
dependency upon China was expressed. It seems more 
likely, however, that no answer to the telegram was sent 
because now for the first time the Department of State was 
being forced to reconsider the entire question of the policy 
toward Korea in the light of the relations of that country 
to China and Japan respectively.* To the American Gov- 
ernment this was a new and perplexing question, and before 
an answer was devised, Shufeldt had already signed the 
treaty. While the treaty was ratified, it was perhaps not 
exactly welcomed by Secretary of State Frelinghuysen. To 
the declining popularity of the Chinese in the United States, 
as well as to the embarrassment of the Department of State, 
may perhaps be assigned the reason why the letter of the 
King of Korea to the President, expressing dependence upon 
China, was promptly pigeon-holed and never officially pub- 
lished in any record. 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

1. The best review of the events leading up to the opening of Korea 
is C. O. PauUin: "The Opening of Korea" (Pol 8ci. Quart, 
VoL XXV, No. 3). This article forms a chapter in Paullin's 
"Diplomatic Negotiations of American Naval Officers." This, 
however, is based on the Navy Dept. records and does not 
include those of the State Dept. except as the latter appear in 

*"This telegraphic message," noted Jobn Russell Yeung, who had been asked 
to review the Korean question and who had filed a report May 1, 1882, "read 
in the light of the confidential dispatch to Mr. Holcombe . . . would seem to 
invite the question as to whether the proposed treaty is for the benefit of 
China or Korea. How far should we commit ourselves to a convention which 
China would regard as protecting her frontiers from some dreaded ultimate 
danger on the part of Russia or Japan, and which Russia and Japan might deem 
an unwarranted interference in Asiatic affairs?" Young recommended that 
the question be evaded by making a purely commercial treaty. Shufeldt had, 
in a measure, exceeded his instructions in making so broad a treaty when he 
had been expected to secure little more than a shipwreck convention." 

Young was soon to depart for the East under appointment as minister at 
Peking. While passing through Tokio he learned that the treaty had actually 
given great offense in Japan. 



UNITED STATES AND KOREA— TREATY OF 1882 465 

the Shufeldt papers, and the Journal of the Cruise of the Ticon- 
deroga (Mss.), both of which are in the Navy Dept. library. 
Griffis : "Hermit Empire," chaps. 44-46, 48, is also valuable. 

2. Reports of the Low-Rogers Expedition, For. Relations, 1871 ; 

Nov. 22, 1870, p. Ill; Apr. 3, 1871, pp. 116, 121, 124, 142; 
1874, p. 254. 

3. For. Relations, 1871, p. 77, Jan. 10, 1871, Low to Fish, gives 

a summary of conditions in China as viewed by the American 
minister. The empire was reported to be in a state of decline 
and ruin. 

4. China Desp., Vol. 43, Nov. 30, 1876, Seward to Secretary of State. 

5. Cruise of the Ticonderoga (Mss.), Navy. Dept. Archives. 

6. Japan Desp., Vol. 43, Sept. 14, 1880, Bingham to Secretary of 

State. 

7. The official reports of the Shufeldt negotiations with Li Hung 

Chang are in China Desp., Vols. 55, 57-59, filed according to 
dates: Oct. 11, 1880, Oct. 22, 1880; Dec. 19, July "l, 1881; 
Jan. 20, 23, Mar. 11, 28, Apr. 10, 28, May 13, 22, 24, 29, 
June 8, 12, 26, 1882. 

8. China Instr., Vol. 3, Nov. 14, 1881. 

9. China Desp., Vol. 59, May 1, 1882. 



CHAPTER XXV 

BEGINNING OF THE CONTEST FOE KOEEA 

The signing of the Shufeldt treaty (May 22, 1882) dis- 
closed to the world the contest which had already begun for 
Korea. Not only Japan and China, but every Western 
power interested in the Far East were involved. 

Japanese Advance 

Under different conditions it might have been expected 
that Korea itself would cast the deciding vote as to the 
possession of the peninsula, but the Korean Government 
was utterly deficient. A change in dynasty in 1863 had 
brought to the throne a boy under the regency of his father 
who was known as the Tai-wen-Kun.^ The regent was anti- 
foreign, a blind patriot, a Confucianist, usually pro-Chinese, 
but chiefly concerned in the retention of his personal place 
and clan influence. Ten years later the king attained his 
majority. He had married into the Min family, and thus 
acquired as queen a strong-minded, aggressive woman, some- 
what disposed towards progress and violently opposed to 
the Tai-wen-Kun who was immediately retired. The treaty 
of 1876 had been signed with the approval of China which, 
in the midst of its wavering policy towards Japan was, for 
the moment, seeking conciliation. But the execution of the 
treaty met with strong opposition from the reactionary Ko- 
rean party. Japan, so suave and conciliatory when dealing 
with the Western powers, was from the outset harsh in 
Korea. The reports of returning explorers, not a few of 
whom visited the peninsula in the next five years, are in 
entire agreement upon this point. Because the arrogant and 
ruthless character of the Japanese settlers and officials 

466 



BEGINNING OF THE CONTEST FOR KOREA 467 

played directly into the hands of the seclusion party, Japan 
found it wise to proceed very cautiously in entering upon the 
new privileges. While a Japanese settlement was immedi- 
ately developed at Fusan, where Korean trade with Japan 
had been transacted for centuries, it was not until 1880 that 
Gensan, on the eastern coast at Broughton's Bay, and 
In-chuin, near Chemulpo, were opened to Japanese trade 
and then in the face of much opposition. 

The progressive element in Korea found a measure of 
leadership in the young king and queen, and was nourished 
by Japanese contacts. Two embassies were sent to Tokio 
where the visitors were treated to sight-seeing as the Japa- 
nese embassies of 1860 and 1872 had been treated in the 
United States. Just as the Americans had made efforts to 
stimulate progress in Japan, so Japan displayed before the 
astonished Koreans the advantages of Western civilization. 
A "Civilization Party" came into being in 1880. Thus 
developed a most complicated domestic conflict in Korea 
which somewhat resembles the pre-restoration struggles in 
Japan. The issue was not clear-cut between the two par- 
ties although the Tai-wen-Kun, as leader of the reaction- 
aries, was pro-Chinese while the progressive party inclined 
towards the Japanese largely because Japan was at that 
time the only source of enlightenment. In 1881 twenty- 
four Koreans were sent to Japan to study, but at the same 
time more than three times as many were sent to China 
for the same purpose.- 

Japan steadily pushed its influence at Seoul and in 1882 
a Japanese ofiicer was installed as drill-master for Korean 
troops. Military supplies were also ordered from Japan. 
The intentions of the Japanese when Shufeldt arrived in 
Korea were unknown. As soon as it was reported in Tokio 
that the American envoy was about to leave Tientsin, the 
Japanese representative in Seoul, then in Japan, was rushed 
with all possible speed to Korea where he arrived the day 
after the appearance of Shufeldt and the Chinese fleet. 
Shufeldt received the impression that the Japanese would 
have liked to retrieve the ground lost in their blunder of 



468 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

two years before by manipulating the negotiations in such 
a way that the American treaty would have been obtained 
through Japanese agencies. Li Hung Chang had amply 
provided for such a contingency and the Japanese, who for 
the moment were involved in serious controversies with the 
Koreans, were unable to intervene. 

The increase of Japanese influence, coupled with the 
signing of the Shufeldt treaty, provoked the reactionary 
forces and drew the Tai-wen-Kun again into the arena. 
Two months after the signing of the treaty (July 23, 1882) 
the ex-regent, supported by a mob, made an effort to seize 
the persons of the king and queen, attacked and burned the 
Japanese legation, and assassinated some of the more im- 
portant leaders of the Civilization Party, including mem- 
bers of the queen's, the Min, family. The king and queen 
escaped, although it was at first reported that the latter had 
been killed, and the Japanese legation, which was a mili- 
tary as well as a diplomatic organization, escaped from the 
city, made its way to the coast, and after many adventures 
was picked up and taken to Japan in a British surveying 
vessel. 

It was freely predicted in the treaty ports and also 
y abroad that war between China and Japan was rapidly 
approaching.* 

Undoubtedly the American Government, though unin- 
tentionally, had incurred an obligation in making a treaty 
with Korea. While this fact may not have been fully 
realized in Washington, it was evidejat to John Russell 
Young who, at the time of the disturbance in Seoul, was 
passing through Japan on his way to his newly appointed 

*The Spectator (London, September 2, 1882), for example, stated: "The 
outbreak of hostilities between China and Japan is one of the most likely 
events to happen within the next few weeks." It was also remarked in this 
same article that in event of hostilities the United States had "always shown 
a greater disposition to act through Japan than through China." In a pre- 
vious article (March 11) the Spectator, in reviewing the various steps in 
Japanese expansion, had characterized them as "entered without a sufficient 
reason and of their own accord," and described them as part of a "policy 
which can only be characterized as one of reckless and unscrupulous ambi- 
tion. It was freely predicted that in the approaching struggle China, whose 
navy had been recently greatly strengthened, and then consisted of about 
seventy vessels, sixteen of which would compare in efficiency with those of any 
navy in the world, would win. China was buying her navy in England and 
training it under British auspices. The Chinese navy later passed under 
German influence. 



BEGINNING OF THE CONTEST FOR KOREA 469 

duties as minister at Peking, Young, as already noted, 
had reviewed the Shufeldt despatches before leaving Wash- 
ington. Better than anyone else he was able to understand 
their significance because he had only recently returned 
from the East with General Grant. Young was a devout 
admirer of Grant and had been fully conversant with 
Grant's views on the futility of war between China and 
Japan. In Tokio, Inouye, Japanese Minister of Foreign 
Affairs, had intimated to Young that Japan was disposed to 
feel that the Shufeldt treaty had been made in the interest 
of China, and that it would have the effect of disturbing 
the relations between Korea and Japan. In Shanghai 
Young learned from the Japanese consul of the events of 
July 23 in Seoul. From what he knew of Japanese de- 
termination to hold the place already won in Korea, the 
prospect for peace appeared ominous and it became neces- 
sary for him swiftly and without instructions from Wash- 
ington to devise a policy. With the approval of Admiral 
Clitz, he despatched the U. S. S. Monocacy to Korea with 
instructions to watch the proceedings, preserve the strictest 
neutrality, and offer "good offices" if convenient. Com- 
mander Cotton was ordered not to join with the Japanese 
in any demonstration, to use his influence to dissuade the 
Japanese from any belligerent movement, and at the same 
time to make the visit of the Monocacy an act of courtesy 
to the Japanese. 

While the visit of the Monocacy cannot be said to have 
been the influence which averted war, as was claimed for it, 
the seriousness of the situation had not been underesti- 
mated by Young. The Japanese immediately mobilized 
both naval and military forces and sent the Japanese min- 
ister, Hanabusa, back to Seoul with a large military escort. 
Meanwhile Li Hung Chang had despatched a fleet and four 
thousand troops "to support the government." Hanabusa 
reentered Seoul August 16, and two weeks later the Korean 
Government complied with his demands which included 
the promise to pay 550,000 yen indemnity in five yearly 
instalments, permission for the maintenance of Japanese 



470 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

troops in Seoul for the protection of the legation, a special 
embassy to Japan to offer apologies, and additional trade 
privileges for the Japanese, The Chinese envoy watched 
the proceedings and then retired with his troops, taking 
with him into exile in China the Tai-wen-Kun who had 
provoked the trouble. Li Hung Chang had again, just as 
in 1876, avoided the issue with Japan, concurring in the 
second advance of Japan in the peninsula. 

A few weeks later the King of Korea issued a proclama- 
tion which was designed to allay the fears of the Koreans. 
Scholars were urging that Japan be kept at a distance, but 
this, urged the king, was both unwise and impossible. If 
Korea were to adhere to a policy of seclusion she would 
remain isolated, and would be deprived of all assistance. 
''Let there be no more talk," stated the king, "about Japa- 
nese and foreigners." ^ 

China and Great Britain Aroused 

Notwithstanding this declaration the fundamental facts 
of the situation remained unaltered. In September, 1882, 
Li Hung Chang issued some trade regulations for China and 
Korea which bore no evidence of having even received the 
approval of the King of Korea. They asserted that the 
peninsula was a tributary state and that the concessions 
granted to China were "not within the scope of the favored- 
nation rule existing between the several treaty powers and 
China." The Chinese were to be permitted to open ware- 
houses in two suburbs of Seoul, and there was to be a 
uniform duty of 5 per cent on all exports and imports except 
red ginseng which was to pay 15 per cent.^ 

While Korean subjects in China were not to have ex- 
traterritoriality, Chinese subjects in Korea were granted 
greater immunities than those enjoyed by any other power. 
A Korean envoy was to be sent to China but he was to 
reside at Tientsin rather than Peking, and would have a 
rank equivalent only to that of consul. Li Hung Chang, 
to whose yamen the envoy was related, was thus elevated 



BEGINNING OF THE CONTEST FOR KOREA 471 

to a dignity equal with that of the king. Finally, the 
Koreans were to consent to granting a subsidy to a line of 
Chinese steamers between the two countries. China was 
thus set forth not merely as abandoning none of her former 
claims upon the peninsula, but as actually adopting an 
aggressive policy to meet the Japanese advance. 

Li Hung Chang followed the proclamation of the trade 
regulations by placing his personal representative, Herr 
von Mollendorff, formerly of the German consular service, 
as Inspector of the Korean Customs and member of the 
Foreign Office. 

A brief survey of the international situation thus created 
now becomes necessary. 

China was rapidly slipping into chaotic conditions which 
rivalled those of the Taiping Rebellion. Domestic affairs 
were passing into the hands of reactionaries who were 
ignorant, corrupt and weak. The prevailing policy was to 
resist every reform and to meet every crisis with weak com- 
promises. The management of foreign affairs was more 
and more being turned over to Li Hung Chang who, as 
Viceroy of Chili since 1871 and northern Superintendent 
of Trade with headquarters at Tientsin, was entrusted also 
with the inauguration of whatever measures were taken to 
renovate the defenses of the empire. Li Hung Chang was 
not a great statesman, except as compared with his country- 
men; he was not the equal of any one of several of his 
Japanese contemporaries. 

China was beset by hostile powers. In 1867 France had 
annexed three provinces of Cochin China as the first steps 
in a program of territorial aggression at the expense of 
China which was yet to be completed. Russian troops had 
occupied Kuldja and the province of Hi (in Chinese 
Turkestan) where they remained until 1881 when China 
regained part of the territory by the payment of an in- 
demnity and the granting of other terms unfavorable to 
China. Japan had taken the Lew Chews and had shown 
a disposition to take Formosa. Russia as well as Japan 
was threatening Korea, Worst of all China was becoming 



472 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

the back yard of European politics. The opening of Korea 
disclosed the ugly outlines of European intrigue as they 
had not been revealed before. 

Russia, although working at first quietly and secretly, 
was vitally interested in the future of Korea. The Trans- 
Siberian Railway had been projected as early as 1862, 
although not actually begun until 1891. Vladivostock was 
closed by ice from two to four months in the winter and 
was too far removed from the markets of Asia to be of first 
rate commercial importance. Korea, in the possession of 
a power hostile to Russia, would be not only a barrier to 
warm water, but also to southern markets. Whoever con- 
trolled Korea could also control the Sea of Japan and the 
approaches to Vladivostock. Without Korea Russia had 
no assurance that she could even hold what she had already 
obtained in Siberia, much less penetrate into Manchuria. 

France, long since separated from alliance with Great 
Britain, was now becoming the creditor of Russia and was 
at the same time seeking the good will of Japan. French 
interests in South China as well as French interests in 
Russia brought France into line against China. 

The opening of Korea was therefore alarming to Great 
Britain. The latter was primarily concerned with placing 
obstacles in the way of the southward movement of Russia 
at every point along the far-flung frontier. In this contest 
with Russia, China occupied the position of a gigantic bar- 
rier state between Russia and India. So long as Korea re- 
mained under the shadow of China, British interests found 
a measure of protection. Korea, severed from China, was 
all the more likely to fall into the hands of Russia. Even 
before Li Hung Chang had invited Shufeldt to make a 
treaty with Korea the Viceroy, so it is believed, had given 
a similar invitation to the British Minister at Peking which 
for some reason was declined. While Great Britain inter- 
posed no objections or obstructions to the American treaty 
with Korea, British interests immediately upon its signa- 
ture became very active and set about to thwart the execu- 
tion of the agreement in such a way as would definitely 



BEGINNING OF THE CONTEST FOR KOREA 473 

sever Korea from the Chinese Empire. Thus Great Britain 
became, without the formality of an alliance, the ally of 
China, and was ranged against not only Russia and France, 
but also against Japan.^ 

It had never been the intention of Li Hung Chang to 
relinquish Chinese claims in Korea, and when he found 
that the document which he and Shufeldt had drafted, in- 
stead of affording protection to Chinese interests in the 
peninsula actually operated to weaken them, he set about, 
with the advice of the British and not improbably at their 
instigation, to rectify his blunder. -- 

Into this mass of conflicting interests, most of which 
had their roots in a century of European diplomacy and 
intrigue, came the United States which was not only 
utterly detached from the European conditions of which 
the Far East was coming to be but a phase, but also con- 
temptuous of alliances and international entanglements. 
Where, in such slippery places as the Korean peninsula 
afforded, was the United States to stand? With every one 
of the contesting European parties the United States was 
on the friendliest terms, and to the proposed victims of 
their intrigues it was bound either by "good offices" or 
mediation clauses in existing treaties. Had the alignment 
in Korea been merely between the East and the West, the 
United States would not have found it difficult to choose. 
Traditional American policy indicated the support of the 
East. But the line was north and south as well as east and 
west. To take sides for or against either China or Japan 
was to depart from an historic friendship with either one 
or the other of the only remaining strong Eastern states. 
The United States had thrust itself into the situation 
prompted more by a spirit of adventure than led by any 
wise counsels of statesmanship. Once in, the American 
Government desired nothing but peace. The unofficial 
recommendations of General Grant had been taken up into 
the ofiScial American policy: peaceful relations between 
China and Japan were necessary in the interest of the 
building up of a strong East to meet the aggressive West, 



474 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

and they were equally important for American trade inter- 
ests. But American statesmanship was too unfamiliar with 
the facts and too inexperienced to frame and execute a 
policy which would remove the causes of war and make 
peace possible. 

While instructing its representatives in Tokio and 
Peking to do everything possible to allay the growing ir- 
ritation between the two countries, the American Govern- 
ment determined to adhere to the policy of regarding 
Korea as a sovereign and independent state. A diplomatic 
post equivalent in rank to those at Tokio and Peking was 
created at Seoul and Lucius H. Foote was appointed to it 
in February, 1883. Secretary of State Frelinghuysen drew 
attention to the anomalous trade situation created by the 
Chinese commercial regulations of the preceding year. 
Under these regulations the Americans were denied the 
following privileges which were permitted to the Chinese: 
to reside and trade at four points in the interior; to travel 
in the interior under passport; to transport native produce 
from one port to another. In addition the duties were 
discriminating in favor of China. ''To this the United 
States cannot consent," stated Frelinghuysen.*^ Minister 
Foote arrived at Chemulpo May 12, 1883. 

The Japanese had now become very well reconciled to 
the American treaty with Korea. Foote visited Tokio on 
his way through Japan and was supplied with a Japanese 
interpreter who accompanied him to Seoul. The Japanese 
recognized that the American policy in Korea was, in effect, 
distinctly friendly to Japan. Li Hung Chang, when he 
learned of the visit to Tokio and of the presence of a Japa- 
nese interpreter in the American legation at Seoul, was as 
disgusted as the Japanese were pleased. The interpreter 
remained only a few months. 

The other foreign powers adopted towards Korea a very 
different policy. While Russia remained in the background 
Great Britain, Germany and France hastened to Korea after 
the signing of the Shufeldt treaty. Admiral Willes con- 
cluded a treaty for Great Britain two weeks later, following 



BEGINNING OF THE CONTEST FOR KOREA 475 

the very liberal provisions of the American treaty, but this 
was never ratified. In November of the following year a 
second treaty with less liberal provisions which were more 
in accord with the views of British merchants was signed 
by Sir Harry Parkes. A treaty with Germany was signed 
the same day. Great Britain then showed the trend of its 
policy by appointing as diplomatic representative a consul 
general who was made responsible to the British minister 
in Peking, Thus England was supporting the Chinese 
claim to suzerainty over Korea by making the British dip- 
lomatic establishment in the peninsula an appendage of the 
British Legation in China. Germany was represented by 
a consul who reported directly to Berlin; France by a 
"Commissaire" reporting directly to Paris; and Japan by a 
Charge, Minister, or Ambassador Plenipotentiary, as suited 
the situation. In 1884 Congress reduced the post at Seoul 
to that of Minister Resident, equal in rank to that at 
Bankok. Foote thereupon resigned. The Chinese Govern- 
ment then requested that the American Government make 
the Seoul Legation an appendage of the American Legation *V 
in Peking, but the United States declined (December 5, 
1885). 

The policy of China was equally significant. In Oc- 
tober, 1883, a Chinese commissioner "to manage the com- 
merce of Korea" appeared in Seoul and without consulta- 
tion with or the approval of the Korean Government posted 
the following astonishing notice on one of the gates of the 
city: 

"I wish to inform the people that I have received the appointment 
of Commissioner for China to manage the Commerce of Korea; and 
also that I arrived at Chemulpo on October 14th; came to Seoul on 
the 16th, and opened my office on the 20th. 

"Whereas Korea has been dependent upon China since the time 
Kuichi was appointed King of Chosen, several thousand years ago, 
and the people devoted themselves to the teachings of Si-Su and 
Eejei-Mi, and for the past two hundred years have been wonderfully 
obedient to our existing dynasty; and the peoples, officials and our 
merchants, in their intercourse with our people have acted in a 
laudable manner; and as at present various nations are opening 
commercial relations with Korea; — 

"Therefore, the Chinese Government has issued trade regulations 



/ 



476 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

benefiting Korea; and I hope the merchants and citizens will ap- 
preciate this fact, and obey and adhere to these regulations, that 
harmonious feelings may exist between China and Korea, especially 
as Korea is a dependency of China, and we wish to live in peace and 
harmony. My duty is to manage the commerce which is known to 
our merchants and if any questions arise, or any business needs at- 
tention of whatever import, it is your duty to appeal to me for a 
proper understanding and settlement of the same. 
"Seoul, October 20, 1883. 

"Chin-Chu Tang." 

Later the Chinese representative in Seoul was known as 
a "Resident," the term being apparently borrowed from 
India where the British representative in the court of a 
native state is usually known as the British Resident. This 
Chinese Resident, Yuan Shi Kai, was the personal repre- 
sentative of Li Hung Chang, acting under the immediate 
direction of the Viceroy. His diplomatic status vis-a-vis 
his European colleagues was always a delicate and irritating 
point. Should he be treated as a diplomatic representative? 
If so what was his relative rank in such a diplomatic corps? 
This resident immediately claimed for himself a position 
quite different from that of the representatives of the other 
countries. He demanded and received permission to be 
carried in his chair, accompanied by his attendants, through 
the central gate to the palace when he came for audience 
with the king, while the other representatives were com- 
pelled to leave their chairs at the gate and walk more than 
half a mile to the hall of audience. His exact status and 
the scope of his powers was never defined and when the 
United States addressed to the Tsungli Yamen an official 
inquiry about it in 1889 the Chinese officials replied with 
some asperity: "It would seem to the Prince and the min- 
isters that there is also no necessity of making inquiry 
about it." ^ 

Japan having won another point in the contest for 
Korea in the settlement of August 30, 1882, paused and 
waited for another favorable opportunity to advance. The 
Yokohama Specie Bank advanced a sum of money for 
founding newspapers in Korea, for training Korean soldiers, 
and for other means of peaceful penetration.^ Takezoye, 



BEGINNING OF THE CONTEST FOR KOREA 477 

a man well learned in Chinese, was sent to Seoul as Min- 
ister. 

China, while adopting energetic measures in the pe- 
ninsula, was not yet prepared to fight. In 1882 Li Hung 
Chang was requested to prepare a plan for the invasion of 
Japan, but he was able to persuade the Board of Military 
Affairs that such, a step would be premature. Notwith- 
standing the clan struggles in Japanese politics, the large 
national debt and the relative isolation in which Japan 
stood, the Viceroy was of the opinion that in case of war 
the Powers would be on her side. 

"If Japan should discover prematurely," argued Li, "our plans to 
make war against her, then her government and people will be 
reunited, she will ally with a foreign power, and accumulate money 
by issuing loans, increase her army and navy, build and purchase war- 
ships, with the result that we should be in a disadvantageous position, 
pregnant with danger. An ancient maxim says : 'Nothing is so 
dangerous as to expose one's plans before they are ripe.' It is for 
this reason that I recommend to your Majesty that we maintain 
extreme caution, carefully concealing our object whilst all the time 
increasing our strength." * " 

The King of Korea, catching a glimpse of the vistas of 
independence, and becoming impressed with his importance 
in international affairs, stood erect and turned to the 
Americans for help. He did not relish the idea of having 
three or more thousand Chinese troops quartered in Korea. 
Under the old relationship, whatever it may have been, 
not only were there no Chinese envoys and no Chinese 
troops in Korea, but there were no Chinese merchants ex- 
cept at the border. The average Korean probably did not 
know a Chinese by sight before the Shufeldt treaty. The 
increase of Chinese influence in the peninsula was as much 
resented as the coming of the Japanese had been. The 
king appealed to the American Government (October, 
1883) to send him an adviser for the office of foreign affairs, 

*However, the evidence makes very probable the inference that Li Hung 
Chang did not fully appreciate the strategic value of Korea to China until 
after the Shufeldt treaty. He appears to have consented to the treaty of 1876 
between Korea and Japan ; he engineered the Shufeldt treaty ; he acquiesced in 
the settlement with Japan in September, 1882 ; and he argued in the reply 
to the Chang Pei Lun memorial that China did not have a valid case against 
Japan in Korea. It appears to have been Great Britain which aroused the 
Viceroy to exert himself in Korea. 



478 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

and asked for instructors for his army.^" He also placed 
orders for munitions with an American firm of Yokohama. 
The king even telegraphed for Commodore Shufeldt to re- 
turn to Korea and enter his employ. 

Shortly after the arrival of Minister Foote the Korean 
Government sent an embassy to the United States. The 
embassy was entertained by the American Government and 
returned after a brief visit in the U. S. S. Trenton with 
Ensign George C. Foulk of the U. S. Navy in attendance. 
Foulk became Naval Attache at the Legation and com- 
pletely won the confidence of the king.^^ When Foote re- 
turned from Seoul shortly after the coup d'etat of 1884, 
Foulk became Charge. In September, 1884, Dr. H. N. 
Allen, Presbyterian medical missionary, arrived and within 
a few months other missionaries followed. The king made 
an ofiicial request to the American Government for school 
teachers. American influence in Seoul was easily para- 
mount. 

The opportunity for which Japan had been waiting 
came in the latter part of 1884, when China found herself 
confronted with a war with France. As soon as the hos- 
tilities had begun Takezoye waited upon the King of Korea, 
painted the probable fate of China in the darkest of colors, 
and offered to remit the indemnity agreed to two years 
before, if the king would introduce military reforms in 
Korea, with a view to the elimination of Chinese influence. 
The Japanese minister promised the support of Japan if 
Korea would assert her independence. A month later he 
demanded that Japanese merchants be given most-favored- 
nation treatment on the basis of the Chinese trade regula- 
tions of September, 1882. This was granted. Still later he 
pointed out the danger to Korea if Japan and China were 
to fight on Korean soil, a possibility which seemed to the 
Japanese minister very probable.^ ^ Meanwhile a plot was 
formed between Japanese officials and certain progressive 
Koreans to seize the king and queen. This plot was exe- 
cuted in the midst of much assassination on the night of 
December 4, 1884, on the occasion of a dinner given to the 



BEGINNING OF THE CONTEST FOR KOREA 479 

diplomatic corps to celebrate the opening of a Korean postal 
system. The king and queen were surrounded by the lead- 
ers of the plot and by the Japanese officials, and the follow- 
ing day the king issued orders creating widespread reforms, 
as well as declaring Korean independence of China. The 
next day Yuan Shi Kai with several thousand soldiers put in 
an appearance, recaptured the palace, and forced the Japa- 
nese — -only 130 in all — to retreat to Chemulpo where they 
found refuge on the Japanese war vessels. 

The old form of government was immediately restored 
under the direction of Yuan Shi Kai, and such pro-Japanese 
leaders as had not escaped with the Japanese were assassi- 
nated. The cowp d'etat of December 4 again brought 
China and Japan to the verge of war, 

France had been urging Japan to declare war on China 
because France needed the use of Japanese ship-yards which 
were not available under Japan's proclamation of neutrality. 
Japan though willing to aid France was wary of French 
associations. Count Inouye proceeded to Seoul and reached 
an agreement with Korea (January 8, 1885) in which the 
latter consented to a moderate indemnity and the punish- 
ment of those guilty of the murder of a Japanese officer, 
and further promised to rebuild the Japanese legation and 
barracks for the Japanese soldiers. 

Japan then despatched Count Ito to Tientsin where 
negotiations for a treaty with China were opened with Li 
Hung Chang April 3. Count Ito, according to a Japanese 
historian, stated his case as follows: 

"The claims of China over Korea were historical only . . . The 
claims of Japan over Korea were economical, i.e., she did not claim 
any legal authority over Korea, but from her geographical position 
and the necessity of providing for her constantly increasing popula- 
tion, she was intent on utilizing Korea as the best source from which 
the defect in the home produce of rice was to be supplied, as well as 
the nearest field in which the future sons of Japan might find employ- 
ment. For this purpose Japan would have Korea always independent 
and under no foreign influence ; but within late years China was send- 
ing military and political agents to Korea, and interfering with 
Korean international afl^airs^ as if she intended to make good her 
claim over Korea, long since become purely historical. This state of 



480 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

things had to be rectified, for Japan would never consent to Korea's 
becoming in reality a part of the Chinese Empire." " 

Two days after the the opening of the negotiations the war 
between China and France was brought to a close in what 
amounted to at least a partial victory for China. Japan 
was thus left in no position to act arbitrarily at Tientsin. 
Count Ito had to content himself with a treaty which still 
fell short of a recognition of the independence of Korea^, 
yet substantial advances were made. It was agreed that 
both China and Japan should have the right to send troops 
into Korea, upon the notification of each other, m case of 
emergency; the instructors of the Korean army were to be 
foreign drill-masters, not Chinese or Japanese ; and Li Hung 
Chang promised to send a commission to Korea to investi- 
gate the charge that Chinese soldiers had been acting in a 
disorderly and brutal manner. In short, the treaty raised 
Japan to a position of paramount importance equal to that 
of China in the peninsula. 

Then Russia began to show her hand. A treaty similar 
to those with Great Britain and Germany was signed in 
July, 1884. Soon there were rumors that Korea had also 
entered into a secret treaty by which Russia promised "to 
protect the integrity of Korea against all attacks by whom- 
soever made," in return for which Russia was to supply the 
instructors for the army and Korea was to "loan" Port 
Lazareff to Russia for a winter harbor.^ ^ The treaty was 
reported to establish complete Russian suzerainty over the 
peninsula. Great Britain then ordered the occupation of 
Port Hamilton, an island off the southern coast of Korea, 
and reckoned as a part of the kingdom. This was accom- 
plished April 15, 1885.1^ 

The King of Korea protested that he had no knowledge 
of the treaty and when Alexis de Speyer, formerly of the 
Russian Legation in Tokio, arrived as "Agent Provisoire" of 
Russia in June, 1885, the Korean Government refused to 
carry out the terms of the agreement on the grounds that 
military drill-masters had already been requested from the 
United States and that the treaty with Russia was un- 



BEGINNING OF THE CONTEST FOR KOREA 4S1 

authorized. The negotiations with Russia were found to 
have been the work of von Mollendorff. Probably the 
Viceroy had known nothing of this adventure of his auto- 
cratic representative. The latter was dismissed, the treaty 
went unratified, and Russia discreetly withdrew her claims. 

Meanwhile the American Government delayed in se- 
curing the authorization of Congress to the loan of military 
instructors to Korea and it was not until April, 1888, that 
three officers arrived.* The . Korean confidence in the 
United States had been greatly shaken by the delay. The 
United States was an uncertain friend to lean on in time 
of trouble. 

Upon the departure of von Mollendorff, the Korean 
Customs, which hitherto had been managed exclusively by 
Korea, were unceremoniously taken under the care of Sir 
Robert Hart, of the Chinese Maritime Customs. Although 
the funds thus collected were turned over to the Korean 
Government, the returns were published in the Chinese 
Customs Reports as though Korea were a province of 
China. Sir Robert Hart's policy, to use his own words, was 
to ''keep steadily in view the possibility of union between 
the Koreans and the Chinese Customs — such a result will 
be best for both Korea and China." ^"^ The new customs 
inspectorate was henceforth utilized as an agency for re- 
claiming the peninsula to China, and was a step in the 
direction of eventual annexation. Sir Robert in this in- 
stance had no difficulty in serving two masters for both the 
government of which he was a subject and the one of which 
he was an employe wanted the same thing. 

The Korean Government made some feeble protests 
against the occupation of Port Hamilton to which were 
added the protests of the Chinese. Great Britain then took 
up negotiations with China and when China secured from 
Russia a distinct promise that it would not occupy any 
Korean territory after the evacuation of the island, the 
British flag was hauled down (February 27, 1887). These 

♦Both China and Japan had officially endorsed the Korean request for these 
teachers. 



482 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

negotiations were conducted as though Korea were a part 
of the Chinese Empire. 

Between Japan and the realization of her program for 
Korea, Great Britain as well as Russia and China were seen 
to stand squarely in the way. The United States stood 
aloof from the contest and although very kindly disposed 
towards Japan studied neutrality. The American policy, 
howeveSr, had already been to Japan as helpful as an 
alliance. Great Britain working in the interest of China in 
Korea was never able to accomphsh°for China as much as 
the United States had wrought for Japan. 

Korea, 1885-1894 

Notwithstanding the fact that both the Chinese and the 
Japanese troops were withdrawn from the peninsula in 
July, 1885, the struggle between the two empires continued. 
Japan, now passing into the arduous labors of treaty re- 
vision, and also preoccupied with domestic reforms, was 
passive for several years, but China, encouraged by the 
support of Great Britain, became very aggressive. 

The Tai-wen-Kun, after three years of comfortable exile 
in China, was returned to Korea with ceremonious escort. 
He could be counted on to oppose Japan. H. F. Merrill, an 
American who had served in the Chinese Customs service, 
replaced von MoUendorff as chief commissioner of Korean 
customs. Mr. Merrill was charged by Sir Robert Hart to 
seek the consummation of a union of the Chinese and 
Korean Customs. ^'^ At the same time Li Hung Chang, who 
was jealous of Hart's influence in Peking, appointed 0. N. 
Denny, an American who had served with credit in the 
American consular service in China, as an adviser to the 
Korean Government. The Viceroy expected thus to have 
two representatives in Seoul — Denny and Yuan Shi Kai. 
These two gentlemen, however, did not get on well to- 
gether. Yuan Shi Kai sought to keep Denny in a position 
subordinate to himself and the result of his efforts in that 
direction was to place Denny in opposition to Yuan and 



BEGINNING OF THE CONTEST FOR KOREA 483 

then to ally him with the cause of Korean independence. 
Denny resigned (April 1, 1888) after forcing an issue with 
Yuan Shi Kai in which Li Hung Chang sustained Yuan 
Shi Kai.* 

In the summer of 1886 a rumor was circulated, pre- 
sumably by agents of Yuan Shi Kai, and with the knowl- 
edge of Li Hung Chang, that Russia had entered into a 
secret treaty with Korea, the effect of which would have 
been to accomplish all that von Mollendorff and de Speyer 
had attempted the previous year, viz., to transfer to Russia 
the suzerainty over Korea which was claimed by China. A 
plot was formed by Yuan, so it is beheved, to take posses- 
si6n of the king, queen and crown prince and deport them 
to China, placing the Tai-wen-Kun again in power. Thus 
it was hoped to accomplish the next step in the annexation 
of the peninsula. A forged treaty between Korea and Rus- 
sia was published and circulated but the plot was detected 
and exposed by Denny, Merrill, the British consul general 
and others.^ ^ The scheme was reminiscent of the pro- Japa- 
nese coup d'etat of December 4, 1884. It failed disastrously 
and resulted in great loss of prestige for China. At about 
the same time the attempt of Yuan Shi Kai to smuggle 
ginseng to China on Chinese war vessels was exposed. 

The next year, probably as a direct result of the Chinese 
interference in Korean affairs, the Korean Government de- 
cided to establish regularly constituted diplomatic repre- 
sentation abroad. China interfered and Secretary of State 
Bayard telegraphed to Peking a very sharp communication 
expressing "surprise and regret" at the Chinese action. ^^ 
The Korean Mission to Washington eventually effected its 
departure from Korea (November 13, 1887) on board the 

* Morse believes that Denny "wrought much mischief," which is true if one 
accepts the contention that Korea should have been made into a Chinese 
province. Morse asserts, quoting a despatch of Rockhill. January 28, 1887, 
that Yuan was a progressive leader, urging Korea to adopt useful reforms. 
Rockhill was in Seoul for only three months, as Charge, and had come from 
Peking where even the Americans favored the Chinese program of annexation. 
The consensus of opinion of the Americans in Korea for the decade, was that 
Yuan was actually an obstructive influence, seeking uniformly the elimination 
of all non-Chinese leadership in the peninsula, and opposing all reforms which 
would tend toward the invigoration of Korea. He opposed Dr. Allen's hospital, 
and even discouraged any efforts of the Americans to organize a famine relief 
fund. 



484 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

U. S. S. Ossipee, thus eluding six Chinese war vessels which 
had been sent to stop it.^*^ Two years later when Pak Chun 
Yang, the Korean minister at Washington, returned to 
Korea, Yuan Shi Kai demanded that he be punished for 
having acted independently of the Chinese minister in 
Washington. The Korean envoy to Europe never pro- 
ceeded farther than Hongkong. 

At the time when Denny's controversy with Yuan Shi 
Kai was agitating both Seoul and Tientsin, Li Hung Chang 
asked the American Government to recall Ensign Foulk 
who had been acting for the second time as Charge at Seoul 
since September, 1886, on the ground that Foulk as well 
as Denny had been encouraging the king in independent 
courses of action. This request was supported by the official 
approval of the Korean Foreign Office which was completely 
under the control of Yuan Shi Kai, but was somewhat 
weakened by secret messages from the king imploring Foulk 
to remain in Korea. At the same time the Foreign Office 
issued a formal request for all foreigners to withdraw from 
Seoul. Foulk was recalled, but his conduct was approved 
by the Department of State and some years later, having 
resigned from the United States Navy, Foulk entered the 
faculty of the Doshisha, an American missionary college, 
at Kioto, Japan. The request for the departure of the 
foreigners from Seoul was not pressed. 

China, meanwhile, set out to secure a practical mo- 
nopoly of the telegraph lines. Japan had secured the rights 
for a cable line from Fusan to Japan. This line was in- 
corporated into the system of the Great Northern Telegraph 
Company to which Japan had granted a monopoly of cable 
lines to China. China proceeded to build a land line from 
Tientsin to the border and thence to Seoul, or rather to a 
suburb of Seoul. While this was in course of construction, 
Japan asked for permission to build a line from Fusan to 
Seoul which would thus afford Tokio also direct communi- 
cation with the capital. The Korean Government refused 
to grant the concession but agreed to build the line as a 
Korean enterprise. This was done — but under Chinese 



BEGINNING OF THE CONTEST FOR KOREA 485 

direction. The result of this contest was that Japan was 
effectually prevented from acquiring telegraph rights in the 
peninsula equal to those enjoyed by China. 

Japan, not only preoccupied with domestic affairs and 
treaty revision, but also alarmed at the advance of Russia 
which Tokio was powerless to check, appears to have be- 
come for the time being little interested in Korean affairs.* 
By some this was interpreted to mean that Japan, already 
preparing to fight China, was not unwilling that the pe- 
ninsula be annexed to China. Annexation by China would 
settle the question of title and leave Japan free to wrest 
the peninsula from her rival in a successful war. 

The most sensitive feature of Japanese-Korean relations 
was the exportation of food-stuffs from the peninsula. 
Japan looked to Korea for supplies of rice and beans. In 
the autumn of 1889 the Korean governor of one of the east- 
ern provinces, alleging a prospective shortage of food-stuffs, 
prohibited the exportation of beans or bean-cake at Wonsan 
(Broughton's Bay). Although the prohibition was re- 
moved in two months and Japan, at that time badly in- 
volved in domestic discord, contented itself merely with 
protests, two years later the controversy was revived and 
the Japanese minister in Seoul presented a claim for 140,000 
yen on behalf of Japanese merchants. So much time 
had elapsed that investigation of the facts was difficult but 
the Korean Foreign Office offered 47,000 yen in settlement. 
The Japanese minister was recalled, charged with lack of 
energy, and was replaced by Oishi, a young Japanese 
politician who advanced the Japanese claim to 176,000 yen 
and presented an ultimatum (May, 1893) demanding pay- 
ment within fourteen days. Japan would have been willing 
to accept the good offices of the American minister in Seoul, 
Augustine Heard, but Li Hung Chang acted quickly and 
met the emergency by advising Korea to settle the matter 
with 110,000 yen, an offer which was accepted by the Japa- 

*"If matters in Korea come to a crisis Japanese politicians ought to make 
up ttieir minds to have nothing to do with that country." Whether Korea 
retains its independence is a matter of "comparatively little concern to us." 
'NicM Nichi Sliimhun, Mar. 7, 1887. 



486 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

nese. The Koreans made the settlement reluctantly, and 
greatly resented the conduct of Japan. The effect was to 
destroy Japanese prestige which had been growing for sev- 
eral years during the oppressions of Yuan Shi Kai. Just as 
Korean sentiment had swung towards Japan after the dis- 
closure of Yuan Shi Kai's plot in 1886, so now it turned 
back toward China which, whatever its intentions, knew 
how to temper its measures with tact. 

The next autumn (1893) the Korean Government 
placed an embargo on the exportation of rice. There were 
indications that the Chinese were engaged in an effort to 
drive the Japanese traders from the peninsula. Korean 
sympathies were now running strongly against the Japanese 
who were acting arrogantly. The prohibition of rice exports 
was removed at the end of three months (February, 1894). 
But meanwhile the Tong-haks (Society of Eastern Learn- 
ing) a semi-religious organization reminiscent of the Tai- 
pings, yet conspicuously anti-Christian, and fanatically 
anti-foreign and anti-Japanese, began to gather force in the 
southern provinces, and advanced on Seoul at the end of 
March, 1894.* ^i 

The Tong-hak movement was accompanied by the mur- 
der at Shanghai of Kim Ok-kiun, an intensely anti-Chinese 
and progressive Korean. Kim had been a fugitive in Japan 
since the coup d'etat of December 4, 1884, and several 
efforts had been made, either with the approval or by the 
instigation of Yuan Shi Kai, to cause his assassination or 
bring about his extradition to Korea. Kim's murderer, a 
Korean, and the corpse, were returned to Korea in a 
Chinese war vessel. The corpse was divided into eight 
parts one of which was exhibited with much oriental en- 
thusiasm in each of the eight provinces, and the murderer 

* Morse states : "... such political aims as tbere were in the Tong-hak 
movement may fairly be said to have been in the interest of Japan." =- This is 
true only to the extent that the movement was intensely nationalistic, and 
sought the elimination of all foreign influence in Korea, including the Chinese. 
It is true that the elimination of the Chinese was in the interest of Japan for 
Korea was utterly unable to maintain independence. The Tong-haks did not 
intend to work in the interest of Japan. Their slogan was, as Morse states, 
"Down with the Japanese and all foreigners." Insulting notices were even 
posted on the Japanese legation, and the Japanese authorities prepared to 
remove their women and children from Korea. 



BEGINNING OF THE CONTEST FOR KOREA 487 

was received in Seoul with approval. The career and fate 
of Kim Ok-kiun from the time of the plot in 1884 until his 
quartered body was distributed in the provinces of Korea 
left the authorities of Japan, China and Korea, all, to 
do considerable explaining and reveals the wretched condi- 
tions which had been created in the peninsula since the 
first treaty in 1876. One is left with the feeling that in 
the approaching war there were no rights whatever except 
the rights of the inoffensive and oppressed Korean people, 
and these rights had never been an issue. 

The Tong-hak movement led directly to a request from 
the King of Korea to Li Hung Chang for troops. Yuan 
Shi Kai would have preferred that the situation be made 
the occasion for Chinese intervention, which would have 
been the next logical step in Yuan's program, but the 
Viceroy was more cautious. The Chinese troops and war 
vessels were despatched from Tientsin June 6, and a notifi- 
cation to that effect was sent to Tokio,* in accordance with 
the stipulation of the treaty of 1885, but the Japanese forces 
were more mobile and when the Chinese arrived at Seoul 
they found the Japanese troops already there. Meanwhile 
the Tong-hak movement had been suppressed by the 
Korean troops. Japan then proposed to China joint action 
in the reformation of the Korean Government. China de- 
clined, asserting with a self-righteousness which appears 
amusing in the light of the history of the preceding decade, 
that although suzerain in the peninsula, she did not inter- 
fere in the affairs of her vassal state. Japan thereupon 
took the matter in her own hands, and as a first step 
towards the elimination of the obstructive Chinese influ- 
ence, demanded that the king declare the independence of 
Korea. On July 27 the king, now a captive in the hands 
of the Japanese, complied, declared war on China, and in- 
vited the Japanese troops to expel the Chinese from his 
territories. 

*TliGre appears to have been no truth in the charge that China did not send 
this notification which the treaty required. A Japanese historian states that 
the notice was sent, but says that it was objectionable because it contained the 
statement that Korea was a protectorate and a dependency of China.^' 



488 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

1. Geo. H. Jones, Korean Repository, July, 1898, — sketch of the 

life of the Tai-wen-Kun; see also Griffis : "Hermit Kingdom." 

2. An excellent synopsis of Korean history is H. C. Allen's "A 

Chronological Index of Events in Korea" (Seoul, 1901). The 
author was closely associated with all the events after 1883, 
serving at various times in the employ of the Korean Govern- 
ment, and then as secretary, charge, and minister for the U. S. 
There are some typographical errors in this index. 

3. See contemporary English papers in both Japan and China. 

4. Text of this treaty in Customs edition of "China Treaties and 

Conventions," Vol. 2, pp. 1521-7. 

5. For an account of Korean history, 1882-94, in which it is assumed 

that China had a legal claim to suzerainty over Korea, and 
that it was to the interest of Korea, as well as of China and 
Great Britain, that the claim be sustained, see Morse, Vol. 3, 
chap. 1. Morse represents the prevailing British view, and 
more especially the ideas of Sir Robert Hart. 

6. Korea Instructions, Vol. 1, May 12, 1883. 

7. China Desp., Vol. 85, July 13, 1889. 

8. Stead, p. 189. 

9. Secret Memoirs of Count Hayashi, Appendix A, p. 318. 

10. Senate Rept. 1443 :48-2, Eeb. 26, 1885. 

11. The Papers of George C. Eoulk are deposited in the New York 

Public Library. 

12. Stead, pp. 190 ff. While Prof. Nagao Ariga, the writer of the 

account, does not state that Takezoye organized the coup d'etat 
which followed, the inference that he was by no means inno- 
cently involved, as the Koreans claimed and as Foulk believed, 
is very reasonable. 

13. Ihid., p. 197. 

14. The alleged text of this treaty was published in the North China 

Daily News, Aug. 5, 1885. Li Hung Chang told Young that 
the text was substantially correct; China Desp., Vol. 76, Aug. 
21, 1885. 

15. China, No. 1, 1887. Port Hamilton Corres. Command Papers, 

4976-5053. 

16. Morse: Vol. 3, p. 13; see footnotes to following pages for Sir 

Robert Hart's very able defense of his objects. 

17. Ibid., p. 18. 

18. The facts of the plot were exposed in a pamphlet; China and 

Korea, by O. N. Denny, 1888. 

19. For. Relations, 1888, p. 220. 

20. Allen : "Chronological Index." 

21. For. Relations, Vol. 2, 1894, p. 15. 

22. Morse : Vol. 3, p. 20. 

23. Stead: p. 203. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

AMEEICAN GOOD OFFICES— SINO-JAPANESE WAE 

The United States was well situated to play the role 
of mediator in Asia. The American Government was far 
removed, by geographical position, by international policies, 
by commercial interests, from either the conflicts between 
Japan and China or the designs of other Western powers on 
Asiatic trade and territory. The Americans desired above 
all else peace in the Far East, for war meant to them a 
disturbance of trade. They also desired the repression of 
the growing European influence in those regions for the 
advance of Europe in Asia was a threat at the open door. 
This latter fact made the United States in some degree a 
partisan of the East against the West, and in the eyes of 
Europe disqualified the Americans as mediators. The 
powers did not desire mediation; they distrusted it. The 
Europeans sought not justice but privilege in Asia. 

The United States was bound by treaties to extend good 
ofiices at the request of China and Korea, and to act as 
friendly mediator at the request of Japan. But the mean- 
ing of these pledges has been wholly misunderstood by 
many modern friends of the Asiatic people. "I think it 
proper to observe," wrote Secretary of State Fish to Min- 
ister De Long (April 28, 1871), when Japan sought the good 
ofl&ces of the United States in the Sakhalin dispute, "that 
it is not supposed that the President can mediate in a con- 
troversy or dispute between Japan and other countries 
unless both parties to the controversy accept him as media- 
tor." ^ Both parties, of course; or else mediation becomes 
nothing less than interference and intervention. 

There were in the nineteenth century no disputes be- 
tween either the oriental states, with trivial exceptions, or 

489 



490 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

between one of them and a western nation, in which both 
sides honestly sought justice, or in which both parties to 
the controversy were prepared to siabmit to an examination 
of the facts in a court of mediatioiL^We have now seen how 
Russia evaded mediation in the case of Sakhalin, and, how 
Japan was equally reluctant to submit the Formosan ques- 
tion to mediation in 1874. Russia was an aggressor, Japan 
was equally so. Russia would not submit to mediation; 
Japan submitted not to mediation, but to the intervention 
of Great Britain. At first the Lew Chew controversy ap- 
pears to be an exception to our sweeping generalization but 
we have seen in the end that it was not. Japan upset the 
decision of the conference at Peking by bringing in at the 
last moment some extraneous demands. Another case in 
point was a request for American good ofiices in the inter- 
val between the battle at the Taku forts (1859) and the 
renewal of the Anglo-French War against China in 1860. 
The Chinese, alarmed at their easy success at Taku where 
they had forced the allied fleets to withdraw, appealed to 
United States Minister Ward, even before the American 
treaty had been ratified, to mediate with the ministers of 
Great Britain and France. Ward invited the Chinese to 
renew the invitation after they had ratified the treaty upon 
which they were basing their appeal.^ They were appar- 
ently ashamed to renew the request after the treatment 
given to the American legation in the subsequent visit to 
Peking, but there is no reason whatever for believing that 
had the request been made again the British and French 
representatives would have been willing to submit the facts 
to impartial review. The evidence in the American records 
leads to the conclusion that the British and French were 
wholly wrong, and there is nothing in their records, aside 
from assertions, which controverts this conclusion. 

The case of the Maria Luz (1872) is one of the rela- 
tively trivial exceptions. A Peruvian coolie ship from 
China in distress was forced to put in at Yokohama. The 
Japanese promptly freed the coolies. Peru sought the good 
ofiices of the United States in the settlement of the conse- 



AMERICAN GOOD OFFICES— SINO-JAPANESE WAR 491 

quent claim against Japan. The American Government ac- 
cepted the duty with the express stipulation that it could do 
nothing which would imply approval of the coolie trade. 
At the suggestion of the United States, the claim was re- 
ferred to the Emperor of Russia, who awarded the decision 
to Japan, May 29, 1875. The reference of this matter to 
Russia became especially easy because in 1864 Mr. Pruyn 
had agreed to submit a disputed claim of the United States 
against Japan, to the arbitration of the Czar. As a matter 
of fact the American claim had been settled without refer- 
ence to St. Petersburg, but the discussion had given the 
United States an opportunity to show its willingness to 
conform its practice to its preaching.^ 

American Mediation in the Franco-Chinese War, 

1883-1884 

A more important case in which American good offices 
were invoked was the Franco-Chinese controversy over 
Annam. This is an important episode, the narration of 
which is also necessary in order to show more fully the 
nature of Chinese-American relations during the period 
following the Shufeldt treaty with Korea. 

Soon after the French Charge in Peking had announced 
(1866) to the astonished Yamen that his government was 
about to annex Korea, France would appear to have con- 
cluded to seek territorial expansion only in the south. 
France had made a treaty with Annam in 1862, and twelve 
years later concluded a second one in which France recog- 
nized the complete independence of Annam, in much the 
same way as Japan recognized by treaty the independence 
of Korea two years later. Indeed French policy in Annam 
afforded Japan a model for policy in Korea — a similar 
satellite of China. In 1874 France also actually acquired 
Cochin China. China protested because the treaty in effect 
made France, rather than China, the suzerain over Annam. 
The matter remained in dispute until the latter part of 
1883 when Li Hung Chang signed a convention with France 



492 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

according to which the Chinese troops were to be withdrawn 
from Annam, and the two nations were jointly to guarantee 
the independence of this territory which for two centuries 
had paid tribute to Peking. There was a sudden change of 
government in France and the convention was repudiated 
at Paris. The new French cabinet proposed an expedition 
to China and a liberal credit was voted. Then a French 
officer, Riviere, was killed in an engagement with the Black 
Flags, an irregular company of troops which were supposed 
to be more or less supported by the Chinese Government. 
War became all but inevitable. Indeed, it seems quite 
plain that France was seeking to provoke war for the sake 
of securing more territory in the south. 

China, stung by the charges of bad faith, defiant and 
unhumbled, still quite ignorant of the weakness of the 
empire, perhaps misled by encouragements from Germany 
and England, and quite underestimating the strength of 
France, was determined to yield no territory to France, and 
also not to yield suzerainty over Annam. At this point 
John Russell Young, the American minister, whose rela- 
tions with Li Hung Chang were very intimate and confiden- 
tial, and whose relations with Tsung-li Yamen were cordial, 
pleaded for peace. The question was, as he tried to explain, 
not whether China was in the wrong or in the right, but 
whether she could afford a war with a foreign power. She 
had relatively few troops with a modern training, and they 
were in the north. To transport them to Annam there was 
no railroad, and the Chinese Navy could not protect them 
by sea. France was studiously cultivating Japan with a 
view to securing joint action against China. Russia was 
an eternal menace to the Chinese northern frontier. Eng- 
land was busy in Egypt, and presumably not unwilling that 
France should become involved in China, For China itself 
war seemed likely to en4 in disaster.^ 

At length the counsels of Mr. Young had their effect 
and he was asked to invite the good offices of the President 
to secure a mediation of the dispute. To this request Secre- 
tary of State Frelinghuysen replied, July 13, 1883 : 



AMERICAN GOOD OFFICES— SINO-JAPANESE WAR 493 

"This government cannot intervene unless assured that its good 
offices are acceptable to both. In such case it would do all possible 
in the interests of peace. The United States Minister at Paris has 
been directed to sound French Government, and ascertain if it will 
admit our good offices in the sense of arbitration or settlement." ® 

The answer was not long delayed. France declined to ac- 
cept the good offices of the United States.*^ 

The French forthwith proceeded to declare a blockade 
of Tonquin and Annam, and although negotiations con- 
tinued at Shanghai, the troops of the two nations came into 
active conflict in December, 1883. On May 11, 1884, Li 
Hung Chang signed with Commandant Fournier a conven- 
tion which was intended by the Chinese to be the protocol 
to a treaty. In the Fournier Convention France waived a 
claim for indemnity in return for the acknowledgment of 
her territorial and commercial claims in Annam. There 
was entire disagreement between the Chinese and the 
French as to the interpretation of this protocol, and even as 
to its authorized text, and on June 23, 1884, Colonel 
Dugenne and twenty-two French soldiers were killed in 
an engagement at Bade.* 

Again China appealed to the good offices of the United 
States and again (July 20, 1884) Minister Young referred 
the matter to Washington. China wished to submit to 
arbitration the question as to whether she had acted in bad 
faith with reference to the Fournier Convention. Again 
France declined to admit the good offices of the United 
States, 

China was thus brought face to face with war. The 
American minister renewed his efforts to find a peaceful 
solution, feeling that peace at any price which France might 
demand would be better than conflict. At length Prince 
Kung asked Mr. Young to go to Shanghai, see M. Patenotre, 
the French representative, and obtain a settlement. China 

*H. B. Morse, who was present at the Li Hung Chang-Pournier negotiations 
and saw the documents, gives personal testimony as well as other evidence to 
prove that the French Government was guilty of extremely bad faith in the 
observance of this convention. His verdict is : "It is only on the ground that 
an Asiatic nation has no rights which the white man is bound to respect that 
the course of France is to be explained." For the French statement of the 
case see Cordier.'' 



494 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

was even willing to agree to any indemnity which Young 
might recommend. The American minister referred the 
request to Washington for approval, but Secretary of State 
Frelinghuysen was wary, having already been twice re- 
pulsed by France, and withheld his approval. An August 5 
Admiral Lespes attacked Keelung in Formosa. After this 
attack all hopes of peace vanished. The Chinese were 
roused. Prince Kung was retired, and with the retirement 
of the prince came the eclipse of Li Hung Chang, who had 
clearly realized the folly of resisting the French. 

Early in September the China Merchants Steam Navi- 
gation Company which had been purchased a few years 
before from Russell and Company, was resold to the former 
owners, and the American flag was raised over the fleet of 
steamers. France, thus deprived of the opportunity of 
making a most profitable reprisal upon China, was now less 
than ever willing to accept any good offices from the United 
States. However, the American Government kept in very 
close touch with the rapidly developing situation and on 
several subsequent occasions was the medium of communi- 
cation between Paris and Peking. Sir Robert Hart also 
undertook the task of mediation and after more than a year 
of work succeeded in bringing about the signing of a proto- 
col, April 4, 1885.8 

Mr. Young, although his efforts at mediation between 
China and France had failed, was determined to demon- 
strate the good faith of the United States in its advocacy 
of arbitration as a means of settling disputes, and was able 
to secure the consent of the Chinese Government to the 
arbitration of the 'Ashmore Fisheries Case' by the British 
and the Netherlands consuls at Swatow. The case involved 
the action of the Chinese officials in depriving Dr. W. Ash- 
more, an American missionary at Swatow, of a fishery which 
he had purchased in connection with a mission. An award 
of $4600 was made to Dr. Ashmore June, 1884.^ Earlier in 
the same year Mr. Young had proposed that the claims of 
the foreigners arising out of a riot at Canton in September, 
1883, be submitted to arbitration, but he was unable to 



AMERICAN GOOD OFFICES— SINO-JAPANESE WAR 495 

secure the consent of the Chinese to such a statement of the 
disputed points as would have satisfied the British authori- 
ties." 



<^ 



D Offices of the United States in Korea 

Having in mind the foregoing review of previous Ameri- 
can efforts to mediate the disputes of the Far East, we are 
in a position to return to a survey of American policy in 
the rapidly maturing conflict in the Korean peninsula. 

Since the ratification of the Shufeldt treaty the Ameri- 
can Government had consistently maintained a policy, 
sound in legality but weak in statesmanship, that it would 
recognize Korea as a sovereign, independent nation in all 
that pertained to foreign relations.* The policy would have 
been perfect in a perfect world, but in fact it rested upon as 
great a fallacy as that which had underlain the Gushing 
treaty with China. Korea lacked the vitality which alone 
makes possible the exercise of sovereignty. The Korean 
Government was a vine, not a very lovely one either, which 
trailed in the dust unless it could cling to some stronger 
power for support. Of independence there was nothing 
save a pitifully feeble cry of desire. There were many con- 
testants for this position of supporting power in Korea, but 
the United States was not one of them. The Korean Gov- 
ernment was in the position of an incompetent defective 
not yet committed to guardianship. The United States 
was her only disinterested friend — but had no intention of 
becoming her guardian. 

When the American Government became aware that the 
Chinese and Japanese troops were facing each other in the 
peninsula the American Minister in Seoul, Mr. Sill, was 
instructed (June 22, 1895) : 

"In view of the friendly interest of the United States in the wel- 
fare of Korea and its people, you are, by direction of the President, 

♦"With the reserved relation of Korea to China we cannot properly inter- 
fere to raise any question unless the course of China should be such as to 
manifestly shift accountability as regards foreign interests and intercourse to 
the shoulders of China." Wharton to Heard, Aug. 25, 1890." 



/ 



496 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

instructed to use every possible effort for the preservation of peaceful 
conditions." ^ 

The Koreans, caught between the mill-stones, and quite 
powerless to act effectively for peace, appealed to Russia, 
France, England, and the United States for help, and Mr. 
Sill, the American minister, joined with the representatives 
of the other powers in asking China and Japan to agree to 
a simultaneous withdrawal of their troops from Korean 
soil. Both China and Japan refused. On July 5th the 
Korean representative in Washington asked that the Presi- 
dent ''adjust the difficulty" arising out of the fact that the 
Japanese minister in Seoul had presented to the Korean 
King a long list of administrative reforms and was pressing 
that they be immediately adopted. At about the same time 
the Chinese Government at Peking sought the good offices 
of England and Russia to secure a peaceful solution. The 
British minister in Peking urged, through Charles Denby, 
Jr., American Charge, that the United States take the initia- 
tive in uniting the great Powers in a joint protest at Tokio 
against the beginning of hostilities in Korea by Japan. On 
July 8 Denby wired that Li Hung Chang had officially ex- 
pressed the desire that the United State take the initiative 
as the British minister had suggested. 

It could not be argued that in the conflict now beginning 
for the control of the peninsula Japan was innocent of blame. 
The Japanese Empire, vis a vis Korea, was placed some- 
what similarly to England and the kingdom of the Nether- 
lands which had been created by the Congress of Vienna in 
1815. The two island kingdoms could not but view with 
concern the nature of the control of the adjacent mainland. 
Great Britain was pleased to witness the creation of a 
Belgium; the Japanese had since 1871 been working to 
create on the Korean peninsula a political condition sim- 
ilarly favorable to their empire. Japan could not honestly 
assume the role of injured innocence. Indeed, after 1892 
the attitude of Japan towards China became distinctly un- 
compromising and even menacing. In an address before the 
Diet (December, 1892) Count Aoki, Minister of Foreign 



AMERICAN GOOD OFFICES— SINO-JAPANESE WAR 497 

Affairs, sought to divert the attention of the Diet from 
troublesome criticism of domestic affairs and the failure 
of treaty revision. He said : 

"As for the position -of the country, everybody is agreed that it is 
excellent. If you look at the map of the world you will see that 
America has her back turned to us, and that on her western coast, 
thousands of miles away from our shores, no good port lies open. 
Europe is only less distant from us for all practical purposes. But 
here in Asia, the case is very different. At your doors sits a nation 
of 2,700,000 people, ready to take your manufactures and products, 
and to give you its own in return. Look at the coal fields of your 
country in the north and in the s5uth. Are not these landmarks set 
by nature to indicate the position your country ought to take ?" 

Thus far Aoki would appear to have been advocating merely 
a policy of peaceful economic penetration into the mainland 
of Asia, but a following paragraph practically incited an 
attack upon China: 

"Occupying such a position and possessing such capacities, why is 
it that the people of Japan do not devote more thought to the foreign 
policy of the Empire ? If you go back in your history to the Ashikaga 
era, you will find that the men of southern Japan whom some may 
perhaps call pirates, launched themselves in little boats and harried 
the coasts of China with its hundreds of millions of people, coming 
and going at will and taking and leaving at will. Surely it seems 
somewhat petty that the descendants of such men as those should 
allow their mental vista to be occupied entirely with the four ideo- 
graphs jouaku haisei (treaty revision). It seems to me that larger 
subjects invite their attention. The present, however, is not the 
occasion for me to dwell at length upon this phase of our foreign 
policy." (Reported in Japan Daily Mail, December 20, 1892.) 

It could not have escaped the attention of the American 
Government that in June, 1894, Japan had reached a very 
ominous crisis in its domestic affairs in which a foreign war 
would be a very welcome diversion to the repeated inter- 
ference of the Diet in the affairs of government. On June 
2, 1894, the Diet had been dissolved by the Emperor for 
the third time since December 25, 1891. There was within 
the Empire a clear-cut contest between the oligarchy which 
had governed the country since the Restoration and a more 
popular form of government in which the lower house of 
the Diet was seeking control of the purse strings.^ ^ Only a 



498 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

foreign war, it seemed, could stop this contest, the issue of 
which was so greatly to be dreaded by the oligarchy. 

Notwithstanding these facts the United States gave no 
evidence of a disposition to join with China and the 
European powers in opposing Japan in Korea. The treaties 
demanded the tender of good offices. The United States 
made the offer and it was rejected. The obligation under 
the treaties was therefore for the moment discharged. In- 
tervention was now the only alternative, but intervention 
with the other foreign powers involved support of a policy 
which would really weaken rather than strengthen Asia. 

Japan having refused to heed the protests of the United 
States as well as those of England and Russia, Secretary of 
State Gresham told the Korean envoy in Washington on 
July 9 that the American Government would not intervene 
either forcibly, or jointly, with the European powers; that 
it would maintain "impartial neutrality," and that it would 
seek to influence Japan only in a "friendly way." Mr. 
Gresham expressed to the Japanese minister in Washington 
the hope that Japan would deal "kindly and fairly with her 
feeble neighbor." 

To China's request for intervention Gresham replied 
advising that China offer the whole question for friendly 
arbitration. He did not then believe that Japan would re- 
sort to war. China was not prepared to submit the entire 
question to arbitration. The fundamental point at issue 
was the validity of Chinese suzerainty over Korea. This 
pretension would have had a most doubtful status before 
any board of arbitration when studied in the light of the 
various treaties which had been made by Korea beginning 
with the Japanese treaty in 1876, and also when considered 
in the light of existing treaties between Japan and China. 
China by 1894 had surrendered too much and acquiesced 
in too much, ever to establish a position of technical 
suzerainty over Korea. 

On October 8, the British Charge approached the Ameri- 
can Government with a proposition for joint intervention 
by the United States, Germany, France, Russia and Great 



AMERICAN GOOD OFFICES— SINO-JAPANESE WAR 499 

Britain on the basis of an indemnity to be paid by China to 
Japan, and the guarantee by the Powers of the independ- 
ence of Korea. A month later China formally invoked the 
good offices of the United States, citing the treaty of 1858, 
and asking for joint action with the other foreign powers. 
Before this invitation was received, Gresham directed U. S. 
Minister Dun in Tokio to inquire whether good offices 
would be acceptable to Japan, and the same day Gresham 
carefully defined the position of the United States in a note 
which clearly explained why the American Government had 
been unwilling to join the European powers in intervention: 

"The deplorable war between Japan and China endangers no 
policy of the United States in Asia. Our attitude towards the 
belligerents is that of an impartial and friendly neutral, desiring the 
welfare of both. If the struggle continues without check to Japan's 
military operations on land and sea, it is not improbable that other 
powers having interests in that quarter may demand a settlement not 
favorable to Japan's future security and well-being. Cherishing the 
most friendly sentiments of regard for Japan, the President directs 
that you ascertain whether the tender of his good offices in the 
interests of peace alike honorable to both nations would be acceptable 
to the Government at Tokio." 

In the above friendly warning to Japan one reads be- 
tween the lines that Gresham clearly understood the inter- 
national situation. The proposals for intervention had been 
directed against Japan with a view to repressing her ad- 
vancing power and influence in Asia. These proposals had 
not been primarily in the interests of any Asiatic state, but 
in the interests of European political and commercial am- 
bitions in Korea. Dressed in their best clothes these pro- 
posals looked in the direction of a protectorate in Korea; 
viewed more cynically and critically, they looked in the 
direction of dismemberment not merely of Korea, but also 
further dismemberment of China and perhaps of Japan. 

Japan, however, disregarded the admonitions of the 
United States, and, instead of pausing at a point where the 
good offices of the United States might have been valuable 
in saving Asia in general from a large increase of European 
influence, overreached herself by continuing the war so 



500 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 



1 



successfully begun. Japan thus invited the very interven- 
tion which Gresham expected. 

From the policy of cooperation as followed by William 
H. Seward and Anson Burlingame, the United States had 
swung to the opposite extreme of absolute isolation. Suc- 
ceeding administrations, after Seward, had no taste for ac- 
tive cooperation with European powers in Asia on the only 
terms upon which it was offered, i.e., cooperation to repress 
and weaken the Asiatic states, and there was no disposition 
to knight-errantry like Burlingame's. There was at the 
most only a feeble interest in Asiatic affairs. The American 
Government appears to have concluded in the second Cleve- 
land administration that if only the Monroe Doctrine could 
be sustained for the entire western hemisphere, the political 
conditions on the other side of the Pacific might safely be 
ignored. All that can be said for this absurd assumption 
is that it marked a very definite phase in the political de- 
velopment of the American nation. 

China's position was fast becoming desperate. While 
the American Government, ever since the Korean treaty of 
1882, had steadily and consistently discouraged China in 
the belief that in case of a crisis in Korea the United States 
would support the contentions of China, Great Britain had 
consistently supported China's pretensions. Now Great 
Britain, aside from ineffectual efforts to draw the European 
powers and the United States into a concert of intervention 
to thwart Japan, did nothing. British neutrality was, in 
effect, benevolent towards Japan which in an unbroken 
series of victories found herself at the end of November, 
1894, in possession of the seas, the peninsula, and even of 
Port Arthur which practically controlled the avenues to 
Peking. The American legations in Peking and Tokio, re- 
spectively, had been in charge of the Japanese and Chinese 
archives since the outbreak of the war, and Japan now leti 
it be known that she would be willing to entertain direct f 
overtures from China through the Americans. On the day 
after the fall of Port Arthur, November 22, Charles Denby, 
American minister at Peking, was authorized by the 



♦ 



AMERICAN GOOD OFFICES— SINO-JAPANESE WAR 501 

Tsung-li Yamen to begin negotiations through Edwin Dun, 
American minister at Tokio. Denby proposed peace on the 
following terms: the independence of Korea; and the pay- 
ment by China of a reasonable indemnity. Japan replied 
that when peace was made she would dictate the terms as 
became a victor. Strategically Japan was in a position to 
exact any terms she might desire. 

China, unable to secure any assistance from the United 
States and deserted by England, still clung fatuously to the 
belief that somewhere, somehow, help would issue out of the 
West. She turned again to England and she turned to 
Russia.* That China was not sincere in her approaches to 
Japan is abundantly proved by the details of the prelimi- 
nary negotiations. Even while Denby, by authority of the 
Yamen, was negotiating through Dun in Tokio, Li Hung 
Chang sent Mr. G. Detring, his personal representative, to 
Japan as an envoy and yet without any of the powers of 
a plenipotentiary. The Japanese refused to receive him. 
A month later China sent two officials of inferior rank with- 
out suitable credentials, one of whom could not fail to be 
particularly objectionable to the Japanese. They were met 
in Japan by John W. Foster, formerly Secretary of State 
toward the close of the Harrison administration, and more 
recently legal adviser to the Chinese legation in Washing- 
ton.^^ General Foster had been summoned by the Chinese 
Government to act as adviser in the peace negotiations. He 
promptly told the envoys that they were without proper 
credentials, and the envoys were in fact repulsed by the 
Japanese Government. 

Japan also was not ready for peace. While the Chinese 
envoys were in Japan the Japanese forces were advancing 
on Wei-hai-wei, and on January 31 this fortress was sur- 
rendered. There still remained Formosa which Japan had 
desired for more than twenty years and which she would 

♦"Negotiations were kept up between China and Japan by the American 
ministers until late in January, 1895. It would serve no good purpose to 
recount them here. The two nations mistrusted each other, and China was 
always trying to ascertain in advance what the demands of Japan would be, 
in order that she might procure the intervention of England or Russia." 
(Charles Denby. )^* 



502 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

have held in 1874 but for the intervention of Great Britain. 
It was not until March 20 that Li Hung Chang, equipped 
with full powers, met the Japanese plenipotentiaries, Count 
Ito and Count Mutsu, at Shimoneseki. Even then the 
Chinese were resting their hopes on the intervention of 
European powers, and it was not until May 24 — more than 
a month after the treaty of peace between China and Japan 
— that the Japanese forces landed in Formosa. 

Korea after the Peace of Shimoneseki 

The Treaty of Shimoneseki (April 17, 1895) and the 
Treaty of Commerce (July 21, 1896) are important in the 
study of American policy in only two respects and to these 
we must limit our discussion. The defeat of China was the 
beginning of a new commercial era within that empire, the 
relation of which to American policy will be discussed else- 
where. The victory of Japan also carried with it the partial 
realization of a program of Japanese expansion which, as 
already noted, had been projected at least as early as the 
days of the Restoration. J apan came i nto possession of. 
Formosa and the Pescaderoes, thus acquiring a strategic 
position controlling the southern avenue of approach ]to_ 
central China and all northern Asia. Japan also held Wei- 
hai-wei as well as Port Arthur and the Liaotung Peninsula 
which controlled the approaches to Peking. China was_ 
further compelled to recognize the full independence, and 
autonomy of Korea, a victory for Japan which would prob- 
ably have been consummated in 1885 but for the sudden_ 
ending of the Franco-Chinese War. 

That Japan regarded this recognition of the independ- 
ence of Korea as merely the sievering of Chinese ties, and 
not as a satisfactory solution of the Korean question is 
evident from Japanese policy already inaugurated in the 
peninsula when the treaty of Shimoneseki was signed. 
While the king was practically a prisoner in his palace, the 
Japanese demanded a franchise for all the railroads in 
Korea for fifty years, all the telegraphs for twenty-five 



AMERICAN GOOD OFFICES— SINO-JAPANESE WAR 503 

years, and all the posts for five years. They sought to 
eliminate the foreign advisers to the Korean Government, 
and they urged Korea to dispose of the Korean legation in 
Washington and to place Korean affairs in the United 
States in the hands of the Japanese legation. This program 
received a sudden check when Germany, Russia an'ct'^faricir 
preseTrted~ar7oint request, amounting to a demand, that, 
Japan recede~from the Liaotung Peninsula, returning Port 
Ajrthur to China, and followed up this demand, which Japan 
KadTib choice but to agree to, by pressure to make certain 
the withdrawal from Wei-hai-wei, a port which Japan had 
agreed to hold only until the indemnity provided for in the 
treaty with China had been paid. Japan thus discovered, 
as Secretary of State Gresham had warned many months 
before, that she was not to be permitted to consummate 
her program. Meanwhile Great Britain as well as the other 
powers, including the United States, protested against the 
proposed franchises in Korea. 

Japan was represented at Seoul by Viscount Miura, a 
military man who was fairly representative of the extreme 
expansionist party in Japanese politics. Meeting with re- 
sistance not only from the other treaty powers, but also 
from the Koreans, Miura became a party to, if not the in- 
stigator of, a plot similar to the coup d'etat of 1884 and 
the abortive plans of Yuan Shi Kai two years later, to elimi- 
nate the queen and her party from Korean politics, and 
indeed, to demolish all opposition to Japan. This plot was 
accomplished October 8, 1895, in an attack on the palace 
and the murder of the queen followed by the burning of 
her body. Viscount Miura was recalled, court-martialed, 
and although his complicity in the crime was proven, he 
was acquitted on a technicality.^^ Miura had served Japan 
badly. When the Japanese influence at Seoul became 
ascendant in the summer of 1894, all foreigners who wished 
Korea well had been disposed to welcome the change from 
the reactionary regime of Yuan Shi Kai. Now the for- 
eigners were shocked, and the Koreans also turned against 
Japan. Japanese influence suffered a rapid decline. 



504 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

Russia, which probably would not otherwise have come 
forward in the peninsula until the completion of the trans- 
Siberian railway, now seized the opportunity and began to 
displace Japan, although not with the entire approval of 
the Koreans who wished not only to be rid of both Chinese 
and Japanese interference, but also to be free. The king, 
however, one of the most pitifully abject and unworthy 
sovereigns recorded in the pages of history, took refuge in 
the Russian legation (February 11, 1896) and Russia as- 
sumed as complete a control of Korean affairs as China and 
Japan, respectively, had tried and yet failed to acquire. 
Under Russian influence the government became more and 
more corrupt. By a series of agreements (Lobanoff-Yam- 
agata, June 9, 1896, Waeber-Komura, May 14, 1897, and 
Rosen-Nissi, April 25, 1898) ^'^ Japan yielded to Russia to 
the extent of recognizing, for the first time, the political 
status quo, in return for which Russia granted to Japan a 
freedom in its commercial and industrial relations with 
Korea which would permit of a policy of economic penetra- 
tion, and would at the same time allow Japan time enough 
to build the fleet and organize the army which was necessary 
for the conflict with Russia which was clearly in view. 

This see-sawing of foreign influence in Seoul created a 
difficult position for the American Government. The pos- 
sible pitfalls were innumerable. Both Russia and Japan 
made bids for American sympathy and encouraged the in- 
vestment of American capital in the peninsula. Both 
powers were obviously seeking to commit American interests 
in such a way that when the crisis came the United States 
would turn to their respective sides. In August, 1895, 
Korea granted a concession to an American company for 
the operation of a gold-mine, and in April of the following 
year the contract for a railroad from Chemulpo to Seoul was 
awarded to Americans, with Russian approval and help. 
But the events of 1897 frightened American capital and the 
railroad contract was turned over the following year to the 
Japanese. Japanese capitalists then appealed to America 
for capital to be invested in Korea under Japanese guar- 



AMERICAN GOOD OFFICES— SINO-JAPANESE WAR 505 

antees. Concurrently the Japanese Government withdrew 
its protests against the annexation of Hawaii, adopted a 
very conciliatory policy on the immigration question, and 
when Philippine annexation was under discussion, expressed 
the hope that the Americans would retain the islands. 

The Americans in Korea were less cautious than their 
government. When Japan promised a better government 
for the Koreans in 1894, they had favored the Japanese. 
When, after the disgraceful murder of the queen, the Rus- 
sians came forward and promised to put an end to Japanese 
intrigues, they favored the Russians. When Russia proved 
to be only another wolf in the Korean fold, they fell back 
upon the characteristically American doctrine of Korean 
independence. That Korea could become actually inde- 
pendent only by the intervention of the American Govern- 
ment not merely in Korea, but also in the rapidly increasing 
snarl of European politics does not seem to have occurred to 
them. 

The American Government sought to restrain its citi- 
zens, most of whom were missionaries, from contributing to 
the hopes of the Koreans that help must some day certainly 
come from the United States. But American law is deficient 
in its power to impose restraints on the expression of per- 
sonal opinion by American citizens in foreign countries. 
There was, however, one thing which could be done. The 
American minister at Seoul, as the official representative of 
his government, could be restrained. Following the emeute 
of October 8, 1895, Secretary of State Gresham telegraphed 
to Minister Sill, "Intervention in the political concerns of 
Korea is not one of your functions," ^^ and when the minis- 
ter persistently failed to preserve the absolute neutrality 
which his government had assumed, he was replaced, though 
not until the McKinley administration had been inaugu- 
rated. Dr. H. N. Allen (July 27, 1897) was raised to the 
post from the position of Secretary of the Legation. The 
American policy was clearly defined (November 19, 1897) 
by Secretary of State Sherman in his instructions to Dr. 
Allen. 



506 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

"You have been appointed to this interesting mission at a time 
when there is reason to believe that rival purposes and interests in the 
east may find in Korea a convenient ground of contention, and it 
behooves the United States and their representatives, as absolutely 
neutral parties, to say or do nothing that can in any way be construed 
as taking sides with or against any of the interested powers. And 
such particularity would not only be in itself improper but mi^ht 
have the undesirable and unfortunate effect of leading the Koreans 
themselves to regard the United States as their natural and only ally 
for any and all such purposes of domestic policy as Korea's rulers 
may adopt." ^ 

The Secretary then reaffirmed the principle that the use of 
good offices was in no way equivalent to a promise of inter- 
vention, and was entirely dependent upon the acceptance of 
the good offices by both parties to the controversy. 

At the end of the century the situation in Korea was as 
follows: The Korean Court was more corrupt than ever; 
while Russia still held her place nominally, Japanese influ- 
ence was in the ascendancy again ; and Great Britain, having 
deserted China, was supporting Japanese aspirations. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

1. Japan Instr., Vol. 1, Apr. 28, 18Y1, Fish to De Long. 

2. Ward Corres., p. 594, Aug. 20, 1859, Ward to Cass. 

3. For. Relations, 1863, II, p. 1079 ; 1873, I, p. 613 ; Payson Jackson 

Treat : "Japan and the United States," pp. 100, 101, 70 ; For. 
Relations, 1873, I, pp. 524-5; Moore's "Digest," II, p. 655'. 

4. Mr. Young refers to the conference with Li Hung Chang in 

"Men and Memories," Vol. 2, p. 308. See also Tyler Dennett : 
"American Good Offices in Asia," Journal of International 
Law, January, 1922. 

5. China Instr. Vol. 3, July 13, 1883, Frelinghuysen to Young. 

6. Cordier: "Relations, etc.," Vol. II, p. 399. This is the sole 

reference by historians to these overtures. 

7. Morse: Vol. II, pp. 353-7; Cordier: Vol. II, pp. 435 ff. 

8. For. Relations contain no references whatever to the Young- 

Li Hung Chang or the Frelinghuysen-Morton correspondence 
for the arbitration of the Franco-Chinese War. The Young 
dispatches, among the ablest papers in the archives of the 
Dept. of State, are as follows : China Desp., Vol. 65, Aug. 8, 
1883, Aug. 16, 1883, Sept. 7, Oct. 8, 1883; Vol. 67, Dec. 24, 
1883; Vol. 68, Jan. 6, 1884; Vol. 71, Aug. 21, 1864; Sept. 4, 
1884; Vol. 73, Dec. 22, 1884. The details of the Hart nego- 
tiations will be found in Morse, op. cit., pp. 364-7. 

9. Moore's "Arbitrations," II, 1875. 



AMERICAN GOOD OFFICES— SINO-JAPANESE WAR 507 

10. For. Relations, 1883, p. 209 ; 1884, p. 46 ; Morse, op. cii., p. 320. 

11. Korean Instr., Vol. 1, Aug. 25, 1890, Wharton to Heard. 

12. For. Relations, 1894, II, p. 22. The following pages in Foreign 

Relations bring together and give in great detail the diplo- 
matic correspondence of the American Government in relation 
to the Sino-Japanese War. 

13. See W. W. McLaren : "A Political History of Japan," chaps. 9, 

10. 

14. Charles Denby : "China and Her People," Vol. 2, p. 132. 

15. John W. Foster : "Diplomatic Memories," Vol. II, chaps. 30-32. 

These chapters together with Denby's chap. 10 give a fairly 
complete, account of the entire peace negotiations. The cor- 
respondence of the peace negotiations was published in the 
English newspapers in both Japan and China. The official 
documents were collected and published in pamphlet form by 
the Tientsin Times. 

16. Japan Daily Mail, Feb. 1, 1896, gives the report of the Miura 

court-martial proceedings. 

17. These, as well as other treaties with or concerning Korea, have 

been collected in a convenient booklet entitled "Korea : 
Treaties and Agreements," published by the Carnegie Endow- 
ment for International Peace (1921). They will also be found, 
of course, in the various larger collections of treaties. 

18. For. Relations, 1895, p. 972, £^. 11, 1895; see Sill's reply, p. 977 

19. Korea Instr., Vol. 1, Nov. 19, 1897, Sherman to Allen. 



Ho^. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

TEEATY ENVISION 

The tap-root of American policy in Asia was always 
commercial and political most-favored-nation treatment — 
equality of privilege. While the other Western powers 
might fairly claim a similar basis for their policies, there 
was a difference. All treaties started with most-favored- 
nation treatment as a base, but the European powers and 
Great Britain constantly sought to whittle down to a 
minimum the safeguards interposed by treaties for the 
political and commercial independence of the Asiatic states, 
and to manipulate the interpretation or revision of the 
treaties in some way which would actually create a pre- 
ferred position for the nationals of the power thus exerting 
itself. At this point the American Government parted com- 
pany with the other treaty powers after 1866. The United 
States desired not merely to protect the Asiatic states in 
the enjoyment of the rights guaranteed by treaty, but also 
to remove or modify any restrictions upon their liberties 
which would thwart their development as strong states. 
The United States wanted a strong East; the other powers 
did not. 

The United States entered the period of treaty revision 
with another policy not easily reconciled with the purpose to 
promote, a strong East. Cooperation with other powers was 
difficult so long as that cooperation was to be manipulated 
for the repression of Asia. The cooperative policy, there- 
fore, which reached its height under Seward in the Con- 
vention of 1866 and the Burlingame treaty, was abandoned. 
It is difficult to name an exact date when this took place. 
While it was nominally sustained by the Department of 
State until 1877 when Hamilton Fish retired at the end of 

508 



TREATY REVISION 509 

the Grant administration, actually cooperation had ceased 
in Japan by 1870, and in China did not survive the de- 
parture of Burlingame. The name continued in Peking 
throughout the century, a polite fiction, a synonym for 
ordinary diplomatic courtesy, but the spirit of the coopera- 
tion was well described by John Russell Young, American 
minister at Peking, 1882-5, who wrote : 

"This policy, when studied, simply meant in practical experience 
that when matters went to please Great Britain there was joint action. 
Otherwise there would be no action until Great Britain was pleased, 
and as there were very few questions in which the United States 
were concerned, it was deemed best for the American interests that 
the Legation should act alone and, like its British associate, unite in 
"joint action" when such a course served the United States." * ^ 

While the period of treaty revision did not formally 
start until 1868, hardly before the signatures to the treaties 
were dry the efforts to modify them had begun. The 
foreigners were bent on increasing their advantages; China 
and Japan were seeking to reduce them. The three main 
objects of attack were the five per cent tariff, extraterritor- 
iality, and further opening of the country. To all of these 
provisions, in Japan as well as in China, the United States 
was well committed in 1858. 

Revision in China by Interpretation and Agreement 

China's power of resistance reached its lowest ebb at the 
conclusion of the Anglo-French War in 1860, which coin- 
cided with a revival of the Taiping Rebellion. In the next 
forty years China lost much, both by treaty-interpretation 
and by new treaties, and gained nothing except as foreign 
powers occasionally opposed the aggressions of their own 
or some other's nationals. During the four years in which 
Sir Frederick Bruce and Anson Burlingame worked together 
in Peking, the efforts of the mercantile communities, not- 
ably at Shanghai, to secure loose interpretations of the 

*Charles Denby, American minister at Peking from 1885 to 1898, writes of 
the cooperative policy as thougli it did not disappear until the struggle for 
concessions which followed the Sino-Japanese War. The erroneous nature of 
this assumption will appear in the following pages.'' 



510 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

treaties in favor of increased privileges for foreigners met 
with effective resistance. British pubhc opinion underwent 
a great change in the sixties which is represented in the 
inauguration of the first Gladstone ministry in 1868.* 

Official policies for the United States and Great Britain, 
respectively, are registered in the Burlingame treaty of 1868 
and the Lord Clarendon letter, but after them "all regulat- 
ing influences seem to have been removed," and ''the utmost 
pretensions of the merchants, commercial, fiscal, and munici- 
pal, have in the course of time, one after another, been 
attained." ^ The coasting trade, contrary to the desire or 
intention of the Chinese Government, passed into the hands 
of foreigners ; for many years the Americans were the chief 
beneficiaries. The effort to secure Chinese representation 
in the municipal government at Shanghai was thwarted, and 
while the technical sovereignty of the Empire over the city 
was not abolished, the power of the Imperial government 
to levy taxes was curtailed. Shanghai contributed nothing 
to the Imperial revenues except through customs. Extra- 
territoriality was stretched to cover law as well as jurisdic- 
tion and the foreigners even reserved for themselves the 
exclusive right to interpret the law under the treaties. The 
imperial government was prevented from fully enforcing 
the penalties for smuggling. Eventually the immunity from 
inland taxation secured under the British tariff of 1858 by 
the payment of an additional 2^^ per cent duty at the ports 
was greatly broadened to include a large amount of trade 
which was not only not a part of the foreign commerce of 
the Empire, but was not even carried on by foreigners. 
Thus in a measure China lost even the power to regulate 
internal taxation. The provision of the Burhngame treaty 
(Article 8) by which the United States disavowed "any 
intention or right to intervene in the domestic administra- 

*"It is not too much to say that ten years later the treaty of Tientsin in 
its entirety would have been an impossibility ; not but what the Chinese 
authorities could have been compelled to yield all that it contains ; but that 
the British Government yielding to the democratic impulse that has, in the 
interval, passed over Europe and America, would have hesitated to impose all 
the conditions to which the Chinese Government then submitted." (Address 
of J. Barr Robertson before the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic 
Society, May 16, 1870.=) 



TREATY REVISION 511 

tion of China in regard to the construction of railroads, 
telegraphs, or other material internal improvements," never 
accepted in a formal way by other powers, was of no value 
except to exclude Americans from privileges of interference 
enjoyed by their competitors. Meanwhile, because of rising 
prices, the five per cent duties ceased to be effectively five 
per cent. This also amounted to a revision in the interests 
of the foreigner. While the treaties of 1858 were, during 
the nineteenth century, never actually and formally revised, 
a revision by interpretation and special agreement was 
steadily taking place, and almost uniformly to the disad- 
vantage of China. In 1900 the commercial and political as 
well as the geographical sphere in which the Empire might 
exercise its sovereign rights was much smaller than in 1860. 
As the years went on this form of revision became of less 
and less benefit to American interests and even became 
disadvantageous, but after the day of Burlingame and Sew- 
ard, the American Government offered no effective opposi- 
tion.^ 

Treaty revision in Japan proceeded in less subtle ways 
and was characterized by the very aggressive policies of the 
Japanese Government which forced the conflict of interests 
into the light of day. The steps in the revision are clearly 
definable. The first efforts were made immediately by the 
foreigners and went against Japan. They were directed first 
at the tariff which under Townsend Harris had been favor- 
able to Japan as well as to the United States. In 1866 
Japan was forced by a joint naval demonstration to consent 
to 'regularize' the various tariff reductions which had been 
secured by Lord Elgin, Mr. Pruyn, and by the voluntary 
concessions of the Japanese, in a conventional tariff of 
specific duties similar to those of the British tariff of Tien- 
tsin. Similarly, as in China, the rise in prices had the effect 
of reducing this tariff so that in another ten years the 
specific duties amounted to less than four per cent when 
calculated on an ad valorem basis. 

After 1866 American cooperation in treaty revision 
ceased. From that time onward American policy is marked 



512 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

in five stages: Japanese efforts in 1872 to which may be 
joined certain decisions of the American Government in the 
limitation of extraterritoriality; the treaty of 1878; the 
Shufeldt treaty with Korea in 1882, which is an official state- 
ment of policy for that date ; the treaty revision conferences, 
1882-8, concluding with the unratified treaty of 1889; and 
the actual revision accomplished in 1894. In passing it may 
be noted that the history of American policy in tariff revi- 
sion in Japan might, during this period, have been repeated 
in China had the latter government been in a position to 
invite it. 

Japanese Efforts at Revision 

The revision of the treaties with Japan was due in 1872. 
Among the foreigners there was a movement on foot to de- 
mand the unlimited opening of the country to travel, resi- 
dence and trade. The Japanese, realizing the difficulties of 
the approaching crisis, set out to meet them just as China 
had done in 1868 by means of an embassy, consisting of 
Lord Iwakura and four 'Vice-ambassadors." Although 
American influence in Tokio had reached its lowest point 
since the opening of the Empire,* the United States was 
looked upon as friendly to Japan, and the embassy planned 
to visit America first, as the Burlingame mission had done, 
possibly with a view to securing similar official approval in 
the United States which might be used effectively in 
Europe. 

While Japan gave formal notice in 1871 of its desire to 
revise the treaties the following year, it appears that the 
original intention of the Emperor had been to postpone the 
revision until the return of the embassy.! For some reason, 
perhaps because of advice received in the United States and 

*"With the overthrow of the Tycoon American prestige in Japan went 
down, for with him into exile went all those others whose minds first imbibed 
impressions from foreign powers and wisdom from the shadow of Perry's fleet, 
and the wise counsels of our first minister, Mr. Harris. Since then no exhibi- 
tion of our power or greatness has ever been made in these seas, whilst other 
nations have carefully made displays of theirs." (De Long to Fish, Jan. 
19, 1871.) « 

t"As soon as the embassy returns home we will consider the revision of the 
treaties, and accomplish what we have expected and intended." (Letter of the 
Emperor to President Grant.') 



TREATY REVISION 513 

because of the enthusiastic reception accorded to the Jap- 
anese, it was deemed wise to proceed at once to a revision 
of the treaty, and Ito and Okubo, two of the envoys, were 
sent back to Japan to secure the necessary full powers. 
They returned to Washington with a draft of the revision 
as desired by Japan. This draft contained a provision which 
would give to Japan tariff autonomy and probably stipu- 
lated that in return for the opening of either more ports or 
the interior of the Empire, the foreigners should relinquish 
either part or all of their extraterritorial rights.* In the 
midst of the negotiations which ensued the embassy with- 
drew the proposal, at the crafty advice, so it is said, of the 
German minister in Tokio, von Brandt, who advised the 
envoys that it was not to the advantage of Japan to nego- 
tiate separately with the different powers.^ ^ The American 
Government, it is believed, had warned Japan against mak- 
ing any more joint treaties, but it was always the policy of 
the other powers in Tokio to maintain joint action in treaty 
revision negotiations and usually to thwart attempts to 
transfer the negotiations from Japan to a foreign capital. 
The Japanese announced that a conference of the treaty 
powers soon would be called in Europe and that the nego- 
tiations would there be resumed. The embassy remained in 
Europe more than a year, visiting all of the capitals and 
studying intently every aspect of Western life, and then 
hurried home to avert the proposed wars in 1873 and also 
to report that the Western powers, by means of the treaties, 
had deliberately assigned Japan to an inferior political 
status like that of the other oriental states. f The powers 
were not only indisposed to make any concessions in the 

* The writer has not seen a draft of this proposed treaty. The inferences 
are based on a letter from De Long to Fish (April 29, 1872) in which the 
former returns a draft of the treaty with comments. 

t "Until the late Embassy came to Europe, no Japanese had any correct 
idea of the true nature or of the international bearings of the treaties which 
bind Japan. The higher classes had vaguely felt that the treaties were one- 
sided, but they did not possess sufficient knowledge of European history and 
law to be able to measure them with precision. It was not until the members 
of the Embassy reached Europe that they were able (especially during their 
stay in Paris) to study the question thoroughly. They then perceived that 
the Japan treaties are but another application of the rules and precedents 
which Europe has employed toward all Eastern powers since the capitulations 
were made with Turkey." Frederic Marshall, an attache of the Japanese lega- 
tion in Paris, to Lord Derby, May 6, 1874.^ 



514 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

revision of the treaties but were acting together to demand 
the unhmited opening of the Empire. There is no record 
of the answers prepared by the American Government to 
the Japanese proposals but it is probable that the United 
States, while refraining from demands for the unlimited 
opening of the Empire, would have been quite unwilling to 
surrender extraterritorial rights or grant tariff autonomy, 
although minor concessions might have been offered. 

Upon the return of the Iwakura Embassy, Japan set out 
to devise a program for the accomplishment of treaty 
revision. The general principles of this program were: to 
establish as rapidly as possible precedents of equality in 
negotiations; to break down the joint action of the powers 
and to isolate them from each other, introducing a principle 
of reciprocity; and to carry on the negotiations for treaty 
revision away from home. The specific objects to be at- 
tained were: tariff autonomy, to which was joined the inten- 
tion to raise the duties in order to increase the revenues of 
the government and possibly to afford protection to infant 
industries ; recovery of control of the coasting trade ; and the 
abolition of extraterritoriality. The method to be adopted 
was opportunist: not to insist upon the realization of the 
entire project at once, but to seize every opportunity to 
advance its details. 

Russia and the United States provided the first op- 
portunities. In 1875, as already noted, Russia consented to 
the negotiation in St. Petersburg of a revision of the bound- 
ary treaty of 1855.^*^ Russia, for reasons the full force of 
which appear in the history of her relations with China and 
Korea, had never positively engaged herself to support the 
cooperative policy and, until the close of the Sino- Japanese 
War, usually preferred isolated action. The United States 
joined (1873) with the other treaty powers in urging Italy 
to refuse to ratify a treaty in which it was proposed to open 
the interior to Italians under Japanese jurisdiction.^^ 
Nevertheless that same year the American Government con- 
sented to a Postal Convention with Japan which was nego- 
tiated and signed in Washington (August 6, 1873). This 



TREATY REVISION 515 

was the first treaty with Japan in which the full equality in 
the negotiations was recognized.^ ^ This action on the part 
of the United States was much resented by the diplomats 
in Tokio. Americans were engaged to organize the Japanese 
postal system. The United States took other steps toward 
limiting the application of the principles of extraterritorial- 
ity. In the face of the pretensions of the other foreign 
powers that newly enacted laws were not valid for foreign- 
ers unless approved by the foreign governments — a conten- 
tion which was sustained in China — the American Govern- 
ment ordered the Americans to conform to the hunting reg- 
ulations in 1874, to the new press-laws in 1876, and to the 
quarantine regulations in 1878 and 1879.^^ United States 
Minister Bingham also assented, with the approval of the 
government, to the proposition that Americans, entering the 
interior under passport, should submit themselves to Japa- 
nese laws, it being reserved only that trial and punishment 
for violation of these laws must be under consular juris- 
diction.^* 

Policy of Judge Bingham — Treaty of 1878 

Judge John A. Bingham of Ohio, American minister in 
Tokio from 1873 to 1885, deserves equal rank with Town- 
send Harris among the determined and uncompromising 
American friends of Japan which the last half of the nine- 
teenth century produced in abundance. He represented not 
so much the American Government with which he often had 
differences of opinion, as the American people. He was a 
characteristic American of the period.* 

Immediately upon his arrival in Tokio Judge Bingham 
set himself to secure the revision of the treaties and formal 
abrogation by the United States of the policy of coopera- 
tion which he detested as un-American, as inimical to Japan, 
and as opposed to American commercial interests. He be- 

*Bingham had been long in public life before he went to Japan. He was a 
member of the House of Representatives almost continuously from 1855. Dur- 
ing the Civil War he was judge advocate in the army, and took part in the 
trial of the Lincoln conspirators. He had been one of the managers from the 
House in the impeachment proceedings against President Johnson.^^ 



516 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

lieved the policy of the other treaty powers was being 
directed to prevent Japan from becoming strong, rich or 
democratic, and to secure control of Japanese markets and 
resources. The Convention of 1866, urged Bingham, was 
operating in a manner detrimental to American commercial 
and political interests for it opened the door to excessive 
European importations, prevented the growth of Japanese 
industries, and restricted the revenues of the government. 
Its effect was to cause Japan to pay tribute to England at 
the expense of the other powers. He noted that in 1874 
Japan was forced to settle the balance of trade by a payment 
of about $8,000,000. He pointed out that one of the causes 
back of the Satsuma Rebellion in 1877 was an agrarian 
movement arising out of the excessive land taxes which the 
Japanese Government, unable to increase its customs, was 
forced to levy. Steadily and persistently Judge Bingham 
denounced the existing treaties and demanded their revision, 
or even their abrogation.^^ 

With equal vigor Bingham set himself against the co- 
operative policy which was being steadily invoked to sus- 
tain the political and commercial purposes of the other 
treaty powers. This brought him into conflict with Sir 
Harry Parkes who had been chiefly responsible for the 
Convention of 1866, and had since dominated the diplomatic 
corps in Tokio. It also arrayed him against the British 
mercantile community, and the British-owned newspapers 
of the open ports. Bingham was looked upon as little less 
than a traitor to foreign trade and the attacks upon him 
were vitriolic. It was a magnificent yet probably unneces- 
sary struggle in which Japanese and American interests 
quickly found themselves allied. American influence in 
Tokio rose rapidly and Japanese opposition to the other 
treaty powers stiffened. The Japan Herald (December 12, 
1873) asserted that "England should again introduce into 
Japan a little of the gun-boat policy." But ten years later 
the Japan Weekly Mail (January 20, 1883) mourned the 
fact that in Japan ''British influence remains at a palpable 
discount" and "among all Japan's treaty friends she (the 



TREATY REVISION 517 

United States) is at present the most trusted and the most 
consulted." 

Bingham, at length supported by his government, had 
won his battle for Japan. Dissatisfaction with the British 
pohcy under Parkes had been making itself felt in England 
and a Parliamentary investigation was threatened. That 
year (1883) Parkes was transferred from Tokio to Peking. 
The greatest obstruction to treaty revision favorable to 
Japanese aspirations had been removed. Bingham found 
his ov/n government slow to relinquish the cooperative 
policy although not unwilling to consider reasonable meas- 
ures for treaty revision, and on at least two occasions ^^ the 
American minister -,vas sharply recalled to his duty of coop- 
eration, but in the end he won a complete victory in the 
Department of State. In 1876 the Japanese Government, 
through its minister in Washington, Yoshida, approached 
Secretary of State Fish with a desire for a revision of "small 
clauses in the old treaties." ^^ Yoshida pointed out that the 
expenses of the government had greatly increased with the 
coming of the foreigners and that the customs receipts had 
not increased proportionately. The increasing taxation laid 
upon the Japanese people was, he said, drying up the springs 
of national prosperity. The duties were now "in many 
cases" down to less than one per cent if calculated on an 
ad valorem basis. A return to even an effective five per 
cent would, for example, increase the receipts at Yokohama 
by at least $100,000 a year. Fish found the request "very 
reasonable and proper." He sympathized with the desire to 
increase the revenues and to "protect industries." The 
conversations continued for about a year. 

What Japan specifically desired, stated Yoshida, was: 
the revision of the Convention of 1866 in separate negotia- 
tions with each power, thus breaking down the habit of 
joint action; the transfer of negotiations from Tokio to the 
foreign capitals; the recovery of control over the coasting 
trade which in Japan, as it had in China, was passing into 
the hands of foreigners; the restoration of the right of 
tariff autonomy, with which was joined the desire to elim- 



518 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

inate conventional tariffs altogether and to increase the 
duties; the introduction of a principle of reciprocity such 
as would witness to the sovereign independence of the Em- 
pire. The question of extraterritoriality was for the time 
being put aside. The only objection by Fish to the proposed 
program was over the question of most-favored-nation treat- 
ment in case the United States were to agree to the revision 
while the other powers did not. It cannot be claimed that 
Fish showed as much interest in the proposed revision as did 
Judge Bingham, and the negotiations remained unfinished 
at the close of the Grant administration. Meanwhile Japan 
was enlarging her demands. 

Four months after William M. Evarts assumed his duties 
of office in the Hays administration Yoshida presented 
(July 27, 1877) a complete draft of the convention desired 
by his government. The revision of small clauses previ- 
ously proposed now appeared as a proposition for an en- 
tirely new treaty which would abrogate the Convention of 
1866, and which would also carry with it the abrogation of 
the treaty of 1858 in another five years. The objections of 
Mr. Fish were met in the following provision : 

"It is also agreed that the present convention shall take effect 
when Japan shall have concluded a similar convention or conventions 
either collectively or severally, with all the other parties to the . 
Tariff Convention of 1866, similar in effect to the present convention." 

This was amended in the complete draft (Article 10) so 
that to make it effective Japan would have to secure revi- 
sions not merely with the signatories of the Convention of 
1866 but also with ''all the other treaty powers holding 
relations with Japan." 

Evarts was from the outset favorably disposed toward 
the treaty, the more so because of the fact that a few years 
before Sir Harry Parkes, in cooperation with the German 
representative, arbitrarily defined the meaning of "iron 
manufactures" and Parkes had also ruled that coal should 
pay an export duty only when it was taken away in sailing 
vessels. These actions were taken without consultation with 



TREATY REVISION 519 

either the Japanese authorities or Judge Bingham.* They 
were, in fact, a revision of the tariff by two treaty powers 
acting alone. The negotiations in Washington proceeded 
leisurely and in secret. After many changes in phraseology 
and the omission of all reference to the treaty of 1858, the 
treaty was signed July 25, 1878, without any consultation 
with the other treaty powers. The change in American 
policy in a decade was marked. Before signing the Bur- 
lingame treaty Seward had telegraphed the text to all the 
other treaty powers.^^ Now, ten years later, the American 
Government definitely and even secretly abrogated the 
cooperative policy. 

The publication of the treaty was received with great 
displeasure alike by the American friends of Japan who 
objected to the reservations of Article 10, and by the foreign 
powers which saw not merely the advance of Japan towards 
the achievement of its aspirations, but also deflection from 
the useful cooperative pohcy. By Americans Evarts was 
accused of trickery in Article 10 — a charge which was wholly 
groundless. ^^ By Sir Julian Pauncefote, of the British 
Foreign Office, Evarts' independent and secret action was 
characterized as "contrary to all usage." ^^ A combination 
of the European treaty powers, led by Germany and Eng- 
land, was immediately formed to prevent the treaty from 
coming into operation and this was successful, although it 
was known that both Italy and Russia had been favorably 
disposed towards revision. The rage of the British-owned 
journals of the treaty ports was boundless. The next year 
Great Britain attempted to secure an offset to the leadership 
of America by proposing a treaty revision conference to be 
held in London. Japan declined to enter it unless her right 
to tariff autonomy was admitted. In the tentative tariff 

*"It appears from your dispatch, No. 276. that Great Britain and Germany 
changed by a protocol the terms of the Convention of 1866 in a certain par- 
ticular so far as it applied to their respective countries ; and in your dispatch, 
No. 549, you report that the British minister at Tokio has compelled the Japa- 
nese Government to adopt an apparently forced and unauthorized construction 
of one of the provisions of the Convention. As the Convention of 1866 was 
a joint convention to which the United States was a party and as other govern- 
ments that participated in it have assumed to revise its provisions no objec- 
tions can legitimately be urged against the United States pursuing the same 
course." (Evarts to Bingham, June 21, 1877.") 



520 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 



^ 



revision then being discussed the United States was to be 
punished for its break with the cooperative pohcy by having 
the new duty on kerosene, then the chief American import, 
increased from five to twenty per cent, while cottons and 
woolens, the chief British articles of import, were to pay 
only ten per cent. 

'The next year (1880) the United States, in return for 
the immigration treaty with China, negotiated at Peking a 
partial revision of the treaty of Tientsin in which opium was 
again placed on the prohibited list for American importers. 
This was a second though less abrupt repudiation of the 
cooperative policy. 

The Shufeldt Treaty with Japan 

The United States, now well embarked upon an inde- 
pendent course of action, turned its attention as already 
noted to Korea. In 1882 it was evident that even though 
Shufeldt were to fail a treaty with some power could not 
long be delayed. There had already been no less than ten 
efforts to open Korea.^^ 

The Shufeldt treaty deserves attention in the history of 
treaty revision even though it was a new treaty, for it re- 
flects the general policy of the American Government at the 
time, and the treaty made the following year by Sir Henry 
Parkes and by the German minister from Peking show with 
equal clearness how wide had become the gulf between 
American and European policies in Asia. 

The only important stipulations which Li Hung Chang 
had failed to persuade Shufeldt to include in the Korean 
treaty were the acknowledgment of Chinese suzerainty, the 
prohibition of the importation of religious books — a pro- 
vision which was aimed to prevent missionary work — and 
the reservation of the right to Korea to impose transit taxes. 
The treaty provided that while the tariff was to be issued by 
Korea as a sovereign power, the duties were not to exceed 
ten per cent on ordinary articles, or thirty per cent on luxur- 
ies. Opium was excluded, the purchase of land was not 



TREATY REVISION 521 

stipulated, and revision was possible in five years. A simi- 
lar treaty signed by Admiral Willes for the British Govern- 
ment aroused great opposition from the British mercantile 
community.^'* The Yokohama Chamber of Commerce, rep- 
resenting the merchants of all nations, but chiefly composed 
of British subjects, even went so far as to protest officially 
to Judge Bingham against the restrictions to trade in the 
Shufeldt treaty, the ratification of which it was thought 
would be detrimental to the interests of the foreigners in 
the pending treaty revision negotiations in Japan.* British 
interests were also affected, as already noted, by the failure 
to recognize Chinese suzerainty. 

The Admiral Willes treaty was not ratified and the fol- 
lowing year Sir Harry Parkes was sent to Korea to make 
a compact which would be satisfactory to British commer- 
cial interests. The contrasts between the compact thus 
negotiated and the Shufeldt treaty are marked. The right 
of diplomatic officers and consuls to "travel freely in any 
part" of the country was inserted, and the right of the 
Korean Government to withdraw the exequatur of consuls 
was omitted. Two interior points were opened to trade; 
British subjects were to be allowed to purchase as well as 
rent land ; free exercise of religion was permitted ; part of 
the yearly rental for British settlements was to be reserved 
as a municipal fund to be held under the joint control of 
the Korean and British authorities; freedom of travel for 
either pleasure or trade within 100 li of any open port was 
stipulated, and the tariff and trade regulations were revis- 
able, as in Japan, only by ''mutual consent." The penalty 

♦"Understanding that negotiation of a treaty of commerce with the Korean 
Government is contemplated by the Government of the United States, I am 
directed by the committee of the Yokohama General Chamber of Commerce to 
express the hope that your government will favorably consider the wish of the 
members of the chamber (which, you are doubtless aware, represents the gen- 
eral mercantile community of Yokohama and comprises firms of all national- 
ities) that an opportunity be afforded them of stating their views on the com- 
mercial clauses of the proposed treaty before its final ratification, and ask you 
to be good enough to forward this application to the proper quarter for 
consideration. 

"It is obvious to your government, bearing in mind the negotiations now 
pending between the Japanese Government and the Foreign Powers for the 
revision of existing treaties that concessions to Korea involving restrictions on 
travel not hitherto in force in Japan, will undoubtedly operate prejudicially 
against satisfactory completion of their negotiations," (James P, Mallison to 
Bingham, August 23, 1882.) 



522 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

for smuggling was lightened; revision of the treaty at the 
end of ten years was possible, again "by mutual consent"; 
and the Shufeldt clauses were amended as follows: the im- 
port tariff was to be conventional and specific, and was 
graded in four schedules of five, seven and one half, ten, and 
twenty per cent respectively. Cotton and woolen manufac- 
tured goods were to pay seven and one half per cent, and 
metals, raw cotton, thread, raw wool and yarns, constituting 
the bulk of the probable British importations were placed in 
the five per cent class. While the prohibition of opium was 
retained, an exception was made in favor of "medicinal 
opium." The coasting trade was thrown open to British 
subjects. In short, the new treaty was an exceedingly busi- 
nesslike and thoroughgoing affair in which Korea sur- 
rendered not only what had been granted to the foreigners 
by treaty in both China and Japan, but also a considerable 
amount of what the foreigners had obtained also by the 
extra-treaty method of interpretation. British support to 
Chinese claims of suzerainty over the peninsula was pur- 
chased at the expense of Korea in a treaty which out-dis- 
tanced in many particulars any treaty previously made in 
the interests of foreigners in the Far East. Just as the 
Harris treaty with Japan in 1858 and the Shufeldt treaty 
revealed the kind of policy the United States would like 
to pursue when uninfluenced by European competition, so 
the Parkes treaty with Korea showed the kind of policy 
which British and Continental commercial interests desired 
to follow when conditions were favorable. The effect was 
still further to increase American prestige in Tokio where 
the American policy was appreciated as much for its com- 
mercial as for its political implications. 

The Unratified Treaty of 1889 

The attempts at treaty revision in Japan in 1878-9 had 
ended in failure, but the action of the Americans had been a 
great encouragement. Another effort was made in 1880 in 
which it was proposed to deal with the treaty powers jointly, 



TREATY REVISION 523 

and to accomplish the recovery of both judicial and tariff 
autonomy by degrees, according to a graduated scale. The 
premature publication of a draft of this treaty by a news- 
paper which had received it from one of the European 
ministers, aroused popular opposition to such compromises 
and the proposal was dropped.-^ 

Two years later another effort was made. Japan pro- 
posed a new tariff which would increase duties to eleven and 
even to twenty-six per cent. The powers replied with a 
counter proposal which would have yielded about $1,000,000 
less revenues annually. In this draft kerosene was reduced 
from twenty to fifteen per cent, cotton yarn from ten to 
seven per cent, and opium as medicine was to be admitted at 
ten per cent. Looking toward the abolition of extraterri- 
toriality the Japanese Government proposed the introduc- 
tion of foreign associate judges whose services were to be 
continued from six to ten years. Judge Bingham sat in this 
conference at the request of the Japanese and with the ap- 
proval of Evarts, though without the power to commit the 
American Government. This effort also came to nothing for 
a variety of reasons. The Chinese and Korean relations of 
Japan were becoming difficult, and great popular opposition 
developed in Japan when the terms of the treaty became 
known. The provision in regard to opium especially at- 
tracted attention because of a suspected attempt of Sir 
Harry Parkes some years before to introduce the opium 
trade in Japan. ^*' 

It may fairly be claimed that the next effective blow for 
treaty revision was struck not in Japan but in the United 
States. In his annual message to Congress, December 4, 
1883, President Arthur took occasion to state: 

''This government is disposed to consider the request of Japan to 
determine its own tariff duties, to provide such proper judicial tri- 
bunals as may commend themselves to the Western powers for the 
trial of causes to which foreigners are parties, and to assimilate 
the terms and duration of its treaties to those of other civilized 
states." =" 

This open declaration created still further discomfort in the 
foreign communities in Japan. It was characterized as 



524 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

lacking in political sagacity by the Japan Daily Mail (May 
5, 1883) which pointed to the treaty of 1878, the Korean 
treaty, the return of the Shimoneseki indemnity (February 
22, 1883) ; meanwhile the Chinese indemnity money was 
still withheld, and the Chinese Exclusion Act seemed to the 
Daily Mail to indicate a disposition to discriminate between 
China and Japan in favor of the latter which was ''the 
smaller and in every way inferior power." 

It is not possible to establish a direct connection but it 
seems very probable that President Arthur's declaration of 
December 4th had some influence on Great Britain, for 
seven days later Lord Granville issued a memorandum in 
which he expressed an hitherto unknown willingness to 
accept, not a restoration of autonomy, but a revision of the 
tariff such as had been proposed in the counter draft of 
1882. Germany also assented. "Signs are not wanting," 
stated a writer in the London Times, June 9, 1884, "that 
the beginning of the end has come." It would, however, be 
unfair not to mention in this connection that for several 
years the tone of the British press towards treaty revision 
had been changing, and in 1884 Japan had some advocates 
in London as warm as any in the United States. Indeed, a 
comparison of press clippings on Japanese affairs in the 
British and Continental press suggests that for the past ten 
years Japan had been systematically carrying on a press 
campaign abroad to create the necessary public sentiment 
in support of her contentions. The beginning of 1884 may 
be reckoned as an important turning point in the affairs of 
the Far East for it marks the turn of British policy towards 
the conciliation of Japan. At almost any time from then 
until the signing of the treaties in 1894 Japan might have 
obtained substantial concessions from the European powers, 
but as the opposition began to give way Japan steadily 
advanced her claims and became more and more unwilling to 
accept compromises. 

Japan received further encouragement from the United 
States in 1886 when (April 30), the day before another 
treaty revision conference opened, President Cleveland 



TREATY REVISION 525 

agreed to an extradition treaty with Japan, "because," as he 
stated later in sending the treaty to the Senate, "of the sup- 
port which its conclusions would give to Japan in her efforts 
towards judicial autonomy and complete sovereignty." ^^ 

Such declarations from the United States, coupled with 
entire withdrawal from the cooperative policy, and the de- 
parture of Judge Bingham from Tokio in 1885 had the 
effect of eliminating the American Government from a posi- 
tion of influence in the prolonged treaty revision conferences 
of 1886-7. It was no longer necessary for Japan to consult 
and conciliate the United States and her ministers then 
turned their attention to the European states with a view 
to causing still further deflections from cooperation. It was 
beheved that Count Ito entered into an understanding with 
Bismarck which, however, was quite different from that with 
the United States. ^^ The American Government had given 
its support to Japan freely; Germany asked for compensa- 
tion in the form of increased privileges for its nationals. 
The increase of German influence not merely in Tokio but 
even on the entire political structure of the government was 
marked. Neither the American nor the British ideals of 
democracy were consistent with the ideals cherished by 
Japanese leaders for their nation. Modern Germany af- 
forded a more acceptable model. Hitherto Germany had 
acted in the Far East in the closest cooperation with Great 
Britain. The winning of Germany to the Japanese side 
greatly weakened the position of England, and paved the 
way for a better Anglo-Japanese understanding. Thus, 
while the Western nations were making the Far East the 
back yard of European politics, Japan boldly entered Eu- 
rope in an effort to make the Continent the playground of 
Japanese statesmen only thirty years after the nation had 
first opened its doors to the Western world. 

Into the details of the treaty revision conferences of 1884 
and 1886-7 it is not necessary to go in a study of American 
policy. Only their abrupt termination in the summer of 
1887 is important. Inouye, who had been Minister of 
Foreign Affairs for eight years, was on the point of conclud- 



526 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

ing treaties which would have involved not merely the 
establishment of a judiciary of foreigners, but also the sub- 
mission of Japanese laws to the approval of the treaty 
powers. While the proposed treaties represented an advance 
towards independence, they were very far removed from 
granting either judicial or tariff autonomy. The immediate 
advantage to Japan would lie in the fact that in return for 
a tariff which would leave British trade in nearly its old 
position of advantage, Great Britain was willing to yield 
important concessions in the matter of extraterritoriality. 
British and German manufactures were to be taxed, on the 
average about seven per cent, while American products 
would be taxed from twelve to fourteen per cent. Chinese 
sugar, China not being represented in the treaty revision 
conferences, was to pay twenty per cent. Great opposition 
to the treaties developed in Japan. Count Katsu, an influ- 
ential Tokugawa leader, presented a memorandum to the 
Cabinet enumerating "twenty-one faults of the time" in 
which he severely castigated the hurried and superficial 
measures for westernizing the Empire which had been con- 
comitant with the efforts to revise the treaties, ^'^ and 
General Tani, Minister of Commerce and Agriculture, who 
had been sent to Europe by the Emperor to study interna- 
tional politics, returned and entered a protest against the 
treaties which was emphasized by his resignation from office. 
The Tani memorial which, although suppressed by the gov- 
ernment was secretly printed and circulated by the thou- 
sands, was credited with causing the resignation of Count 
Inouye. This memorial throws much light on currents of 
Japanese thought. ^^ 

Viscount Tani pointed out that Japan need not be in 
such great haste about the revision of the treaties. While 
Japan was a small nation it was to be remembered that size 
by itself had little to do with independence. Greece, Swit- 
zerland and Belgium were independent, while India, Poland 
and Turkey were not. The important consideration in 
independence was that foreign powers have no voice in the 
government. The proposed treaties, therefore, marked not 



TREATY REVISION 527 

the independence but the dependence of Japan, for they 
gave to foreign powers a control over even the laws of the 
Empire. Tani urged the postponement of treaty revision. 
No nation, he thought, would be likely to send an army to 
Japan to compel revision, and while the international rival- 
ries were creating so much confusion and so many jealousies, 
Japan was in a way to profit by waiting and by watching 
European politics. 

"When I was abroad," wrote Tani, "I quietly observed that our 
government was inclined towards Germany. Science, commerce, 
military system and even the style of clothing, all seemed to follow 
Germany. . . . The object of the foreigners who cross the ocean to 
Japan is commerce, but if they find everything to favor Germany, 
and protection given only to Germans in matters of commerce in 
which rightfully all nations ought to be able to compete, it will only 
lead to our receiving the ill will of England, America, France and 
Russia. . . . 

"Gur condition may be compared to that of an immoral woman 
who endeavors to get the love of many, but at last gets a bad reputa- 
tion and is rejected by all without exception. Is it not indeed 
shameful ? 

"Then what policy must we pursue? 

"Cease holding the policy and principles of the past, laying aside 
the spirit of dependence, improve our internal government affairs, 
make our country secure by military preparation, not to bring dis- 
grace upon the name and honor of our country by making an outward 
show only of truth, justice and authority; encourage and protect the 
people at home and then wait for the time of the confusion of 
Europe* which must come eventually sooner or later, and although 
we have no immediate concern with it ourselves we must feel it, 
for such an event will agitate the nations of the Orient as well, and 
hence, although our country is not mixed up in the matter, so far as 
Europe is concerned, we may then become the chief nation of the 
Orient. 

"If, therefore, we at this time provide twenty strong warships 
and an army 100,000 strong we can hold the balance among the 
Eastern nations and show a strong front to Western countries. Then 
if there is war between England and Russia, Russia can control 
England by uniting with us, and England can crush Russia if she 
forms an alliance with us. In case of war between China and France, 
our relations towards Russia and England would be the same as 
already stated. Should we remain neutral the advantage to us would 
be great as an asylum, and for providing provisions and communica- 
tions which both have such an important bearing upon success or 
defeat. It is therefore evident that we can seize the opportunity and 
obtain the balance of power in the East and thus compel others to 

* Italics by T. D. 



528 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

esteem and fear us. In the same way we may stand with European 
countries. 

"Is not this a pleasant picture?" 

Probably this sagacious advice of Viscount Tani, so 
reminiscent of Lord Hotta's memorial in 1858, was not 
taken very seriously by the foreign governments, although it 
furnishes the key to an understanding of Japanese politics 
both domestic and international for the next generation, but 
even had it been taken seriously there is nothing to indicate 
that the Americans would not have regarded it with com- 
placency. 

Count Okuma replaced Inouye as minister of Foreign 
Affairs early in 1888, and a new treaty revision program was 
adopted in which Japan resolved never again to enter a joint 
conference with the powers on the subject. The following 
November Japan signed a treaty with Mexico in which the 
national aspirations were at last realized. The treaty was 
uniformly bi-lateral, extraterritorial jurisdiction was elim- 
inated, tariff autonomy was granted, and the most-favored- 
nation clause was so qualified that a special concession 
granted to one nation in a reciprocal agreement, could not 
be claimed by the other except in exchange for some equiva- 
lent concession. In the closing days of the Cleveland ad- 
ministration, Richard B. Hubbard, the American Minister 
in Tokio, by direction from his government, signed a some- 
what similar treaty for the United States. These treaties 
produced the collapse of the cooperative policy. Germany 
signed a treaty on June 11 and Russia indicated a willing- 
ness for revision.^^ 

Treaties of 1894 

The signing of these treaties brought great confusion 
both to the domestic and to the international affairs of 
Japan. Great objection to the treaties with the United 
States and Germany developed in Japan because the pro- 
vision for foreign judges as a temporary measure had been 
retained and the tariff schedule was still conventional.^^ 
The treaties were not regarded as any great improvement 



TREATY REVISION 529 

over those which had been rejected the year before. While 
the Cabinet was still debating the question Count Okuma 
was attacked by an assassin and narrowly escaped death. 
The Cabinet then resigned and Viscount Aoki became Min- 
ister of Foreign Affairs. Meanwhile Great Britain is be- 
lieved to have secured from Germany an agreement that the 
treaty would not be ratified until Great Britain had taken 
action. This promise, whether formal or informal does not 
matter, had the effect of throwing the control of the situa- 
tion almost entirely into the hands of Great Britain where it 
remained until the treaty of 1894 was actually signed. Dis- 
satisfaction in Japan with the treaty increased and the 
Japanese Government asked the American Government, 
which had not ratified the treaty, to hold it in abeyance for 
the time being. 

Great Britain, while still holding tenaciously to the 
favorable commercial privileges of the Convention of 1866, 
as modified by the various proposed tariff revisions in the 
eighties, was no longer disposed to block Japanese aspira- 
tions. Indeed England may be said to have moved meas- 
urably towards the position long held by the United States 
that the advance of Japan in Asia would be beneficial to 
Western trade. British policy tended towards conciliation 
and towards the admission of Japan to a place in British 
estimation, not equal to that of Western powers, but rather 
coordinate with that assigned to China. Japan, as well as 
China, was now seen to be essential to the British opposi- 
tion to Russia. Viscount Tani's predictions were already 
being realized. The treaty between Great Britain and Japan 
was signed July 16, 1894, in London. This compact, which 
was to take the place of all other treaties, was a compromise. 
While extraterritoriality was to be abolished in five years, a 
partially conventional tariff was retained, and Japan did not 
receive the right to absolute control of her coasting trade. 
In return for these concessions, Japan agreed to open the 
Empire, with the stipulation that foreigners were not to be 
permitted to own land. The existing perpetual leases in the 
foreign settlements, however, were confirmed, thus placing 



530 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

upon the emancipated Empire a disfiguring mark of her 
former captivity. A similar yet more hberal treaty with 
the United States was signed in Washington, November 22, 
1894. 

In the long diplomatic struggle thus brought to an end 
we may note the following summary conclusions : 

Japan had won a notable victory not merely in opening 
the way for the definite abrogation of extraterritoriality but 
also in the establishnjent of the beginnings of a cordial 
understanding with Great Britain. Japan had placed her- 
self, potentially, above China at the very moment when 
China was relying on England to help her in Korea. 

Great Britain, as we view the situation in the light of 
subsequent history, had won an even greater diplomatic 
victory for she had been able to transfer herself from a posi- 
tion of hostility to Japan to one of growing friendliness and 
good feeling, and this without more than a partial sacrifice 
of the commercial advantages of the old tariff of 1866: 
Japan was so filled with gratitude for the removal of British 
opposition that her people were inclined to overlook the fact 
that it was the American Government which had forced 
Great Britain into treaty revision. The good will which had 
formerly been directed towards the Americans was now 
turned towards the English. 

The United States, having discarded all diplomacy and 
finesse in the abrogation of the cooperative policy and the 
ready concession to Japan of what were her legitimate de- 
mands, had received little material benefit. Indeed, it 
appears that Japan and the United States were now ap- 
proaching the parting of the ways. The Japanese Govern- 
ment had successfully entered European politics and the 
United States, in the second Cleveland administration, had 
lapsed into almost complete political isolation. Meanwhile 
the question of Japanese immigration to the Pacific Coast 
had already appeared as a factor to disturb perfect harmony 
between the two powers. With the revision of the treaties 
and the action of the United States in the Sino- Japanese 
War we may say that the first chapter in the relations be- 



TREATY REVISION 531 

tween Japan and the United States came to a close. There 
was no rupture, good feeling continued, but Japan had dis- 
covered that while it was necessary for national safety to 
give less and less attention to America, the other Western 
powers demanded a great deal of attention ; if not made the 
friends of Japanese expansion, they would become its in- 
superable obstacles. 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

1. "Men and Memories," by John Russell Young, Vol, 2, p. 322. 

2. Charles Denby : "China and Her People," Vol. 2, pp. 151,_ 162. 

3. J. Barr Robertson: "The Convention of Peking," reprinted 

from the North China Herald, June 2, 1870. 

4. Morse : Vol. 2, p. 158. 

5. Morse : Vol. 2, chaps. 6 and 7 give an excellent review in detail 

of the course of treaty revision in China. 

6. Japan Disp., Vol. 17, Jan. 19, 1871, De Long to Fish. 

7. Charles Lanman: "The Japanese in America" (1872) p. 37. 

This book by the American Secretary of the Japanese Legation 
in Washington gives many interesting details of the Iwakura 
Embassy. 

8. Stead: "Japan by the Japanese," p. 156. To the student this 

essay by Nagao Arega, Japanese legal delegate at the first 
Hague Peace Conference, on Japanese diplomacy is highly 
recommended. It has the advantage of having been prepared 
by one who had access to many authentic sources of informa- 
tion. The sections on treaty revision are especially valuable. 
See also Count Aoki's review of treaty revision history before 
lower House of Diet Dec, 1890. Reprinted in Japan Daily 
Mail Dec. 19, 1890. 

9. The Marshall letter to Lord Derby was never published. 

10. Stead: p. 175. 

11. For. Relations, 1874, p. 645. 

12. E. H. House : "The Thraldom of Japan," Atlantic Monthly, Nov. 

1887, pp. 731-2. 

13. For. Relations, 1874, pp. 637, 645, 653, 663, 773, 779; 1878, 

p. 486; 1879, pp. 604 ff . ; 1876, pp. 363, 367; 1878, p. 514. 

14. Payson J. Treat: "Japan and the United States, 1853-1921"; 

pp. 119 ff. give a good review of the American policy. 

15. John W. Foster: "Diplomatic Memoirs," Vol. 1, pp. 5 S. 

16. Judge Bingham arrived in Japan Sept. 25, 1873. His first 

dispatch urging treaty revision was dated Jan. 17, 1874. Japan 
Desp., Vol. 27, Jan. 17, 1874. 

17. For. Relations, 1874, p. 675, Apr. 20; p. 698, Aug. 26. 

18. There is a documentary record of these interesting negotiations 

in Notes from the Japanese Legation, Vol. 2, beginning Apr. 



532 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

24, 1876, Dept. of State. See also Stead, p. 205 ff. for the 
statement of policy being pursued by Japan, 

19. Japan Inst., Vol. 2. 

20. Seward's "Travels Around the World," p. 200. 

21. E. H. House: "The Martyrdom of an Empire," Atlantic 

Monthly, Jan.-June, 1881, Vol. XLVII, p. 621. 

22. Moore's "Digest," Vol. 5, p. 753. 

23. Allen : "Chronological Index of Korea." 

24. Reports on Korea from the British Minister in Japan. Japan, 

1883, (C. 3455) Japan, 1884 (C. 4044). 

25. Stead : p. 206. 

26. Stead : p. 207. 

27. Richardson's Messages, Vol. 8, p. 175. 

28. Richardson's Messages, Vol. 8, p. 402. 

29. Chinese Times (Tientsin), Nov., 1887. 

30. Stead : p. 208. 

31. Stead : p. 208, refers to the "Tani Memorial," W. W. McLaren 

in Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, Vol. XLII, 
Part I, gives what appear to be extracts from the Tani 
Memorial, but does not include the parts I here quote. 

32. Stead : p. 211, gives a synopsis of the treaty with Germany. 

33. lUd. 



PART VI 

THE DISINTEGRATION OF THE 
CHINESE EMPIRE 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

ASIATIC IMMIGRATION AND AMERICAN FOREIGN 

POLICY 

Asiatic immigration in the United States viewed his- 
torically is much more than a domestic question; it has 
exercised a marked influence on foreign policy. We have 
seen in preceding chapters how in the last quarter of the 
nineteenth century the American Government steadily sup- 
ported Japanese aspirations. We have also noted that in 
the conflict between China and Japan the United States, 
while maintaining technical neutrality, showed a tendency 
towards courses which were distinctly favorable to Japan. 
A partial explanation for this is found in a study of the 
Asiatic immigration question.* 

The immigration problem on the Pacific Coast in the 
nineteenth century was compounded of three conflicts: 
It was economic; a struggle between working men who 
sought to maintain high wages and employers who desired 
cheap labor. It was social; a color conflict in which issues 
broadly similar to those of the negro question appeared in 
the West. It was also political; a contest between the 
Democratic and Republican parties to win the support of a 
doubtful bloc of independent voters in the course of several 
hotly contested state and national elections.^ 

The Coolie Traffic 

Swift clipper ships carried across the Pacific the news of 
the gold-strike and of the demand at San Francisco for 
food-stuffs, building materials, and also for cheap labor. 
About the same time, in some instances even earlier, Aus- 

* Another phase of the subject is discussed in Chapter XXIX, The Mis- 
sionaries and American Policy in Asia. 

535 



536 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

tralia, Panama, Chili, Demarara, Cuba and other West 
Indian ports began to ask for Chinese laborers. Vessels of 
all nations were drawn into the transportation of laborers to 
these various destinations. Competition became very keen 
and abuses appeared which aroused the attention of the 
civilized world. The infamous 'coolie trade' was in full 
swing by 1854. This traffic, which must be distinguished 
from Chinese immigration to California, employed some 
American vessels.* 

The evils of the coolie trade in general were as follows: 
As the demand for laborers increased, artificial methods for 
stimulating recruiting were employed and large numbers of 
ignorant men were decoyed either to 'barracoons' at Macao 
or directly to the vessels where they were detained by force 
and became practically slaves. They were crowded into 
ships which were sometimes not even sea-worthy, and sup- 
plied with insufficient food and water; the mortality en 
route was very high, ranging in the case of vessels entering 
Havana in 1857 from 9% per cent for American vessels to 
3814 P^r cent for Portuguese. At their destination the 
laborers were often transferred to contractors who sold them 
like slaves. They were miserably treated and subjected to 
all the customary evils of the contract labor system so that 
at the expiration of the term of the contract they were 
unable to return to China. Although the government was 
apathetic, the scandals in connection with the enlistment 
of the laborers in China aroused the gentry and added to the 
anti-foreign sentiment among the Chinese so that a general 
uprising against foreigners was threatened at various south- 
ern ports. Great Britain took action in 1855 in the so-called 
British Passengers Act which carefully regulated the trade 
from Hongkong, subjecting it to close inspection and for- 
bidding British vessels to carry contract laborers to other 
than British ports. Other governments were slower to act. 
Tlie trade at the South China ports was transferred to 

*At Swatow in 1855, out of a total of twelve vessels carrying 6388 coolies, 
five were American ; they took out 3050. The Hongkong returns for the 
coolie trade for 1857 showed that out of a total of 70 vessels employed, 22 
were American. In the same year 9 of the 63 vessels bringing coolies to 
Havana were American." 



ASIATIC IMMIGRATION— AMERICAN POLICY 537 

Macao where government officials were very indulgent, or 
to other ports where the control of neither the Chinese nor 
the treaty powers was effective, and American vessels con- 
tinued to share in the opprobrious trade until 1862 when 
they were prohibited by act of Congress. Meanwhile the 
American representatives in China without the support of 
legislation made vain efforts to check the evils of the traffic.^ 
Reputable firms withdrew entirely from the trade but in- 
dividuals brought much disgrace upon the American flag 
and added to the anti-foreign sentiment in China. 

Chinese Labor in California 

The immigrants to California do not appear to have 
been, at the outset, very different in character from those 
to other regions. The passage to San Francisco cost about 
$50. This money was usually supplied by some capitalist, 
native or foreign. The laborer engaged himself either in 
China or California by contract to work for a period of years 
at a stipulated wage. The contracts were transferable. 
The Chinese usually entered into the contracts freely, no 
doubt, yet at their destination they did not become abso- 
lutely free laborers.* 

In later years the management of these Chinese immi- 
grants fell into the hands of large Chinese companies and 

♦Specimen of a contract : ''Chin Suy to serve for on whose 

account Bryson makes this agreement, or for any party who may 

appoint to control his affairs, as shepherd, laborer, or in whatever capacity 
may be required, in the State of California, for a term of 5 years ; and the 
said Chin Suy hereby states his readiness to obey in every respect any orders 

and directions which he may at any time receive either from or 

from any party nominated by , or Bryson, to manage his affairs. 

"And Bryson hereby agrees on the part of said that Chin 

Suy shall receive wages at the rate of $35 per month, which shall be paid hira 
at the close of each quarter ; and that payment of wages to Chin Suy at this 
rate shall commence from the beginning of his service in the said state ; 
Bryson also undertakes to provide Chin Suy with a good sleeping place and 
with food equal in quality to such as is ordinarily eaten by workmen in China ; 
Chin Suy also agrees to repay by means of four equal quarterly instalments, 
to be deducted from his wages, the sum of $6 which has been advanced to him 
by Bryson, or by the party on whose account Bryson makes the agreement ; 
and as words alone furnish no proof of the above agreement having been duly 
contracted, this Deed has been executed in duplicate, each of the contracting 
parties keeping a copy." 

It will easily be seen that such a contract afforded wide latitude for 
abuses in the enlistment in China, on the voyage, and in California.^ While 
this contract, which was used in 1852, may not be typical, it is illustrative of 
the method by which the trade had to be financed owing to the poverty of the 
laborers. 



538 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

they applied a system of financing and handling of labor 
which, while customary and entirely acceptable in China, 
seemed very mysterious and un-American in California. 
The laborers were consigned to some Chinese company in 
San Francisco and upon arrival went to work, usually at 
some task assigned to them by the company, to pay off the 
debt which had been incurred for transportation. Much has 
been written in defense of the system to prove that these 
laborers were not 'coolies' such as were shipped to other 
countries, and that they were not slaves. One may accept 
this conclusion, admitting that the Chinese who came to 
California were superior, and were eager to come, and yet 
not reach the further conclusion that they were free. That 
some of them were free seems altogether probable, but so 
secretive and so impenetrable were the methods of Chinese 
trade relationships it was rarely possible to distinguish with 
certainty between the free and the contract laborer.^ 

At first the Chinese in California were welcomed by 
everyone, but as soon as the rush for gold subsided and 
ordered industrial communities developed, in which there 
was increasing unemployment among disappointed white 
gold-seekers, the Chinese, in company with all non-white 
laborers, became unpopular. They were the objects of 
attack not merely because they were cheap laborers but also 
because they were not Caucasians. It is estimated that 
about one third of the white population of California be- 
tween 1850 and 1860 were from the southern states. There 
was also a large influx of European immigrants, mainly Eng- 
lish and Irish. The number of Chinese on the Pacific Coast 
rose rapidly to about 25,000 in 1852, and 50,000 in 1867. 
The next year there were large importations of coolies to 
work on the Pacific railroads and in 1869, out of a total of 
10,000 railroad laborers, nine tenths of them were Chinese. 
By 1875 the number of Chinese on the Pacific Coast, not- 
withstanding the large numbers who had returned to China, 
had risen to 100,000, and in 1882 there were 132,000 of 
whom nearly 40,000 had entered in that year.*^ 

Various repressive measures were undertaken by the 



ASIATIC IMMIGRATION— AMERICAN POLICY 539 

Pacific Coast states to restrict this increase. The Chinese 
were from the outset denied citizenship, and after 1852 they 
were subjected to discriminating taxes. Between 1850 and 
1870 one half of the total California state revenues were 
derived from the miners' licenses which were paid very 
largely by the Chinese. They were at the same time sub- 
jected to an increasing amount of abuse, injustice, intim- 
idation and assault from the white residents, particularly in 
the cities where the unemployed gathered in large numbers. 
Without offering any justification for this treatment which 
was brutal and appalling, it is evident from the figures that 
California was actually engaged in a very elemental conflict 
for race supremacy. South China had a superabundant 
population ; California was sparsely settled and yielded large 
returns not merely in its mines but in its agriculture to the 
plodding, indefatigable labor of the Oriental. If natural 
laws were permitted, unchecked, to assert themselves it was 
only a question of time when the Chinese with lower stand- 
ards of living and lower wage standards, would be able to 
displace the whites. The condition in the southern states 
after the emancipation of the slaves was ever before the 
citizens of California, so many of whom had come from the 
South, On the other hand many employers, looking to the 
immediate returns, welcomed the cheap labor. 

Treaties of 1868 and 1880 

William H. Seward, as was consistent with his convic- 
tions as a trade expansionist, was a cheap-labor man. So far 
as he had any views on the subject Anson Burlingame, com- 
ing from New England where the problem of cheap labor 
was i)eing solved by European immigration, was of similar 
persuasion. The Burlingame treaty of 1868, which has 
already been discussed as to its foreign policy, was a cheap- 
labor treaty. Indeed the mystery of why it was thought 
necessary to write a treaty for the expression of what Lord 
Clarendon put far more tersely in a letter to Burlingame is 
explained when we come to study the immigration clauses 



540 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

of the Burlingame treaty. It would appear that Seward, 
who wrote the document, was as much interested in the 
labor problem as he was in the extension of American trade 
across the Pacific. At the moment he was particularly con- 
cerned about the delays in the completion of the Pacific rail- 
road due to the inability of the contractors to secure labor. 
Chinese coolies offered a solution of the problem, but the 
supply was imperilled at two points. There was a growing 
hostility in California, and while the Chinese Government 
was apathetic, the departure of Chinese from the Empire 
was actually a violation of ancient Chinese law. The treaty 
was intended at once to regularize the Chinese immigration 
at its source, and to protect it in the United States.* 

The text of the famous declaration (Article 5) which a 
subsequent American minister ^ to Peking declared to be 
'buncombe' was: 

"The United States of America and the Emperor of China 
cordially recognize the inherent and inalienable right of man to 
change his home and allegiance, and also the mutual advantage of 
the free migration and emigration of their citizens and subjects 
respectively from one country to the other for purposes of curiosity, 
of trade, or as permanent residents." 

The treaty, which was bi-lateral, guaranteed to Chinese sub- 
jects "visiting or residing in the United States . . . the 
same privileges, immunities, and exemptions in respect to 
travel or residence as may there be enjoyed by the citizens 
or subjects of the most favored nation." Nevertheless the 
right of naturalization was reserved; that is, it was not 
obligatory upon a state. The privilege of the Chinese Gov- 
ernment to appoint consuls at American ports was stipu- 
lated. Other articles prohibited contract laborers and safe- 
guarded the Chinese in America, as well as the Americans 
in China, in the exercise of religious freedom. 

* "The treaty concluded with the United States recognizes broadly the right 
of China to the jurisdiction of its own affairs and offers substantial protection 
to the Chinese in California. It was this latter consideration which led to the 
adopting of the more solemn form of a treaty in the United States. A treaty 
being the supreme law of the land overrides the obnoxious local legislation 
against the Chinese immigrants." (Burlingame to Bismarck, written in Berlin, 
January 4, 1870.') 

"If I have been rightly informed by those who ought to know, that treaty 
was made, not at the request of Mr. Burlingame or of the Chinese Government, 
but at the request of Secretary Seward." (Pres. James B. Angell, in the 
Journal of Social Science, May, 1883.) 



I 



ASIATIC IMMIGRATION— AMERICAN POLICY 541 

California in 1868 was still attempting to control the 
Chinese immigration by means of state legislation, and the 
Burlingame treaty was ratified by the Senate without op- 
position from labor interests and to the general satisfaction 
of employers. But that year, a presidential year, the Demo- 
cratic party in the state raised an anti-Chinese issue and 
elected a Democratic governor. From that time onward the 
immigration question became the football of politics, state 
and nation.^ The number of Chinese steadily though not 
rapidly increased. Meanwhile various state laws directed 
against the Chinese were found to be unconstitutional. 
Oregon and Nevada became interested in the matter. The 
political parties in California were evenly balanced and 
while the Republican party, the party of Seward and Bur- 
lingame, had generally favored Chinese immigration it was 
now seen that to continue that support was to lose the vote 
in doubtful states. The Chinese question was revived again 
in 1876, and was fanned to a blaze in the summer of 1877 in 
the sand-lot meetings under the infamous appeals of Dennis 
Kearney. In the Constitutional Convention of 1878-9 the 
legislature was empowered to pass legislation prohibiting 
corporations from employing any Mongolian and was au- 
thorized to remove the Chinese from the state. A Republi- 
can legislature, now standing in fear of the labor vote, 
passed a law making it a misdemeanor for any corporation 
to employ a Chinese. This law was declared in a federal 
court to be in conflict with the Burlingame treaty. 

In March, 1876, the Republican State Committee of 
California had passed a resolution requesting the President 
to enter into negotiations for a modification of the treaty 
of 1868, and two months later Senator A. A, Sargent intro- 
duced in Congress a bill to that effect. Instead, a Congres- 
sional investigation was ordered. ^*^ Owing to the illness of 
Senator Oliver P. Morton, chairman of the committee, and 
the withdrawal of members from New York and Massachu- 
setts, the investigation was conducted before a commission 
made up of two Californians and one member from Ten- 
nessee. As a result of this investigation, which was devoid 



542 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

of all judicial character, Congress passed in 1879 the Fifteen 
Passenger Bill which would have hmited the number of 
Chinese immigrants to be brought in any one vessel to 
fifteen. President Hayes vetoed the bill but immediately 
instituted a commission to proceed to China to secure either 
modifications of the existing treaty or a new one. The com- 
mission consisted of one Calif ornian, John T. Swift, subse- 
quently minister at Tokio, one southerner, W. H. Trescott 
of South Carolina, and President James B. Angell of the 
University of Michigan, who was also to be United States 
Minister at Peking, succeeding George F. Seward. 

The commission was Republican. There was a presiden- 
tial election approaching in November, 1880, and both 
parties had recorded themselves in their platforms as op- 
posed to Chinese immigration. The commission arrived in 
China at a time when the government was particularly well 
disposed towards the United States because of the popular- 
ity attained by General Grant the previous year. China was 
greatly embarrassed by Russia over the unsettled Kuldja 
dispute and was contending unsuccessfully with the treaty 
powers for the right to increase the tariff duties. The agita- 
tion against the opium trade had been renewed and was at 
its point of greatest earnestness since 1838. It was a fortu- 
nate time for the Americans to bring up the immigration 
question. The commission asked for a revision of the treaty 
which would grant to the United States the right, at its 
discretion, not merely to regulate, limit or suspend, but also 
to prohibit the immigration of Chinese laborers. The 
Chinese Government, never greatly interested in the welfare 
of its subjects away from home, and for the last thirty years 
desperately occupied with internal questions and foreign 
aggressions within the empire, had never been disposed to 
make the treatment of Chinese abroad a subject of per- 
sistent protest, although it had not passed unnoticed. But 
now well informed by its diplomatic representatives in 
Washington of the political aspects of the trouble, and 
greatly encouraged by Americans who sympathized with the 
Chinese, the Yamen asserted itself and absolutely refused to 



ASIATIC IMMIGRATION— AMERICAN POLICY 543 

yield the right to the American Government to prohibit the 
immigration. The demands of the Americans had aroused 
the pride of a very proud race. 

The treaty which was signed November 17, 1880, was a 
compromise reflecting the moderating influence of President 
Angell, and also the fact that the presidential election, 
already passed, had recorded a Republican victory. To the 
United States was given the right to "regulate, limit or 
suspend" but not to prohibit the coming of Chinese laborers 
"whenever in the opinion of the Government of the United 
States, the coming of Chinese laborers to the United 
States, or the residence therein, affects or threatens to 
affect the interests of that country or of any locality within 
the territory thereof." Laborers already in the United 
States were secured in the right of most-favored-nation 
treatment, and "Chinese subjects, whether proceeding to the 
United States as teachers, students, merchants, or from 
curiosity" were to have equal privileges.^ ^ Concurrently, a 
treaty of commercial intercourse was negotiated in which 
Americans were excluded from the opium trade by a very 
stringent agreement. The Chinese were very much pleased 
with this clause "their object being, if possible," to use the 
words of President Angell's report, "to isolate the British 
Government on this question from the other Christian pow- 
ers, and to compel that Government to take the odium of 
forcing this wicked and demoralizing traffic for the avowed 
purpose of financial advantage." ^^ While not breaking so 
abruptly with the cooperative policy as in Japan, the United 
States thus indicated a preference for independent action in 
treaty revision. The commission had succeeded in handling 
delicate subjects successfully, and relations between the two 
governments remained friendly. 

Growth of III Feeling 

The Pacific Coast states were not at all content with 
the stipulations of the treaty of 1880. They were demand- 
ing absolute exclusion. As a compromise with this extreme 



544 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

demand Congress passed a law, May 6, 1882, suspending the 
immigration of Chinese laborers for ten years, and defining 
the word laborer to include both skilled and unskilled work- 
ers, as well as those engaged in mining. To prevent fraud in 
the readmission of laborers who returned to America after 
a visit in China a system of customs-house registry and 
certificates was devised. The certificates were to be issued 
to all departing Chinese, with the exception of diplomatic 
officers.^^ The bill was passed only after President Arthur 
had already vetoed one providing for suspension of immi- 
gration for twenty years, but even ten years was twice as 
long, according to President Angell, as any period mentioned 
in the negotiations at Peking in 1880. The new law also 
prohibited any state from granting citizenship to Chinese. 
Two years later, just before a presidential campaign (July 
5, 1884), the law was amended by making the system of 
identification more exact, and by the addition of a new 
definition of laborers which would also exclude hucksters, 
peddlers, or those engaged in taking, drying or otherwise 
preserving shell or other fish either for home consumption 
or for exportation. The certificates issued to returning 
Chinese laborers must now be vised before departure from 
China by an American diplomatic or consular officer.^ ^ The 
consular service, upon which this new duty was imposed, 
was not strengthened to meet the responsibility, and was 
not prepared to comply with the law either effectively or 
honestly.^ ^ Thus in less than four years after the negotia- 
tion of the treaty the United States, as even President 
Arthur stated, had clearly departed from the spirit, if not 
from its letter as the Chinese Government understood it.^^ 
The serious disturbance of friendly relations between the 
two governments may be said to date from this time. 

The Chinese immigration question appeared as a factor 
in national politics at the very moment when the American 
Government was formulating a Korean policy. While Con- 
gress was passing the restriction law. Commodore Shufeldt 
was waiting at Tientsin for a reply to his telegram inquiring 
whether he should admit a recognition of Chinese suzerainty 



ASIATIC IMMIGRATION— AMERICAN POLICY 545 

over Korea in the text of his proposed treaty. Another dis- 
turbing factor in the situation had been the sudden recall, 
the previous year, of all of the Chinese students who had 
been sent to America.* While it is difficult to trace with 
exactness the influence of the growing unpopularity and 
distrust of the Chinese on American policy in Korea, the 
fact stands out that for the next decade the Chinese were 
steadily losing popularity in the United States while their 
rivals, the Japanese, with whom the Americans had very 
few direct or personal contacts, were in equal measure win- 
ning confidence and approval. 

The letter of Commodore Shufeldt to Senator A. A. Sar- 
gent, already alluded to, while important only because of 
the fact that it was written by a diplomatic officer of the 
government, may be cited as an indication of the growing 
American distrust of the Chinese. 

It is not possible to show from the diplomatic records 
that the treatment of the Chinese in the United States 
caused the Chinese Government to adopt a particularly un- 
friendly policy towards Americans in China, although offi- 
cials like Prince Kung and Li Hung Chang bitterly resented 
the treatment. The Chinese Government was generally 
anti-foreign and as between the persecution of Chinese in 
the United States which was remote, and the opium trade, 
the aggressions of France, and the general arrogance of the 
foreigner which was ever before the eyes of the Chinese, the 
Americans escaped adverse discriminatory action. It is, 
rather, in Washington to which the perfection of communi- 

*Beginning in 1872 China had sent several companies of boys, in all more 
than one hundred, to be placed in American schools and colleges. The ages 
ranged from eight to sixteen. Various explanations — lack of funds for their 
support, resentment at the growing anti-Chinese feeling in America, and the 
growth of reactionary sentiment in China — were offered for the recall of these 
students, une of the students who subsequently rose to eminence in Chinese 
affairs, Tong Shao-yi, told the writer personally that the real cause was the 
fear that the boys were becoming too much Americanized. They had even 
petitioned their Chinese tutor for permission to cut off their queues. The 
tutor, himself a very conservative Chinese scholar, reported this to Peking and 
an order for their recall was immediately issued. The contrast thus presented 
between the Japanese who had gone so far as to adopt Western dress, and the 
Chinese who declined to permit the boys to remove their queues, is striking. 
There were in the United States at that time a large number of Japanese 
students, but they were usually of a much more mature age than the Chinese. 
The fundamental difficulty with the Chinese students was that they were sent 
away from home too young, even before they had attained a moderate mastery 
of their own difficult language. Whatever the cause, the withdrawal of the 
students made a bad impression in the United States," 



546 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

cations had largely transferred the direction of American 
policy, that we may study the influence of the anti-Chinese 
prejudices. Between 1885 and 1894 public opinion was 
being prepared for the choice between China and Japan 
which was presented at the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese 
War. During this period the Chinese representatives found 
abundant causes for creating many embarrassments to the 
Department of State. The causes were conspicuously just, 
but it may be questioned whether the Chinese Government 
would not have been more astute, in view of the graver 
issues in the East, in adopting a more conciliatory policy in 
Washington. 

The inauguration of the first Cleveland administration 
was inauspicious for the Chinese in the United States. 
There had been riots at Rock Springs, Wyoming, and also at 
Tacoma and Seattle in which Chinese had been killed or 
injured. China, accustomed to prompt demands from the 
treaty powers for indemnity for similar events in China, now 
found some satisfaction in making equally prompt demands 
for indemnity from the American Government. President 
Cleveland recognized the moral obligation of the claim and 
made it the subject of two messages to Congress in 1886, but 
Congress granted it reluctantly and with poor grace after 
much delay. California called a state convention and ad- 
dressed a memorial to Congress demanding absolute prohi- 
bition of Chinese immigration, the elimination of Chinese 
labor from all public works, and the boycott of all employ- 
ers of Chinese labor. Then the Tsung-li Yamen proposed to 
Minister Denby in Peking, and Secretary of State Bayard 
suggested to the Chinese minister in Washington, on the 
same day (January 12, 1887), that a new treaty be nego- 
tiated. Bayard desired the exclusion of the Chinese laborers 
for thirty years ; the minister declined to discuss the proposi- 
tion while the claims for indemnity remained unsatisfied. 
However, a new treaty was signed fourteen months later 
(March 12, 1888), in another presidential year, which stip- 
ulated for prohibition for twenty years, and for payment of 
indemnity to the extent of $276,619.75. In executive ses- 



ASIATIC IMMIGRATION— AMERICAN POLICY 547 

sion the Senate amended the treaty by the insertion of 
provisions which would shut out at least 20,000 Chinese who 
were residents of the United States but then visiting in 
China. On September 13, 1888, Congress enacted a law to 
make effective the pending treaty as soon as the treaty 
should be ratified.^^ 

Ten days later a press report from London contained the 
rumor that the Chinese Government would not ratify the 
pending treaty. Those were the closing days of the presi- 
dential campaign in which President Cleveland was seeking 
reelection. In spite of the official information that China 
was merely reserving the treaty for further deliberation, 
Congress pas'sed (October 1, 1888) the Scott Act which ab- 
solutely prohibited the return of all Chinese laborers who 
had gone to China for a visit,^^ even though they held cer- 
tificates already issued by the customs houses. The bill was 
signed by President Cleveland on the ground that China 
had not properly cooperated with the United States in the 
immigration question. ^^ China immediately entered a pro- 
test at the extraordinary action, and July 8, 1889, the 
Chinese Minister in Washington addressed an exhaustive 
argument to the Department of State in which he stated, 
tartly, that he had yet to learn that it was customary for 
governments to act on the strength of mere newspaper 
reports. '^So far as the legation knows," he wrote, "the 
treaty is still pending, and awaiting the reply of the State 
Department to the amendments proposed in the legation 
note of September twenty-fifth last." 

"I was not prepared to learn . . . that there was a way recognized 
in the law and practice of this country whereby your country could 
release itseJf from treaty obligations without consultation or the con- 
sent of the other party; it can hardly be contended that my govern- 
ment was exceeding diplomatic practice or courtesy in following the 
example of the Senate and proposing amendments. , . ." ^^ 

During the Harrison administration a condition amount- 
ing practically to non-intercourse existed between the 
Chinese legation and the Department of State. The Ameri- 
can Government was in a position, notwithstanding its 



548 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

legality as sustained by the Supreme Court, utterly inde- 
fensible from the viewpoint of diplomacy. The conduct of 
Lord Elgin at Tientsin and Peking, of Sir Harry Parkes in 
Tokio, and of the French minister at Shanghai in 1883 was 
not more brutal and bullying than that of the American 
Government after 1888. The only important difference was 
that the American Government had done wrongly what it 
had a perfect right to do if other measures had been em- 
ployed, viz., regulate its own immigration questions, while 
the powers in China had done what they had no moral right 
to do under any conditions. All parties had degraded the 
principles of international law. It is becoming for Ameri- 
cans in criticizing the actions of other governments in Asia 
to be humble if not charitable.* 

The original restriction act of 1882, as amended two years 
later, presumably did not expire until 1894 but in 1892, with 
another presidential election approaching, Congress again 
took up the immigration question and enacted (May 5, 
1892) the Geary law, the most stringent exclusion act yet 
passed. ^^ According to this law no bail was to be permitted 
in habeas corpus proceedings, and the burden of proof that 
a Chinese had the right to be in the United States was 
placed upon the Chinese himself. In other words he was 
presumed to be guilty of illegal residence until he could 
prove himself innocent. The punishment for violation of 
the law was hard labor for one year and then deportation. 
Later (November 3, 1893) the definition of the word laborer 
was enlarged to include certain other classes such as laun- 
drymen. Under the amendment the certificate which each 
laborer was required to secure as proof of his right to be in 
the country must bear his photograph. In other respects 
the rigor of the Geary law was somewhat modified.-^ The I 

*The resentment of the Cbinese Government at the treatment of the immi- 
gration question by the United States is shown in the refusal to accept Senator 
Henry W. Blair of New Hampshire as minister in 1891. Blair had been so 
unfortunate as to make remarks in the Senate in connection with both the 
restriction act of 1882 and the acts of 1SS8 which rendered him persona non 
grata to the Chinese. -= The rejection of Blair by China accounts in part for 
the fact that Charles Denby, who had been a Cleveland appointee in 1885, 
continued as minister at Peking throughout the Harrison (Republican) admin- 
istration. Denby was reappointed in the second Cleveland administration and 
continued under McKinley until 1898. 



ASIATIC IMMIGRATION— AMERICAN POLICY 540 

following year (March 17, 1894) a new immigration treaty 
with China was signed in which the prohibition of the ad- 
mission of Chinese laborers for ten years was agreed to. 
The exempt classes of Chinese — teachers, students, mer- 
chants, travelers and officials — were carefully defined, and 
transit across the country was permitted. The Chinese 
legally resident in the United States were guaranteed most- 
favored-nation treatment. The stipulation requiring regis- 
tration was made bi-lateral, applying equally to Americans 
resident in China. 

Clearly the American Government, after all its em- 
barrassments in dealing with China on the immigration 
question, was not in any mood at the outbreak of the Sino- 
Japanese War to become in any marked degree a partisan of 
China. Scrupulous neutrality it did maintain, but the 
American people, who knew much by hearsay of the Chinese 
in America, and nothing of the Far Eastern question, were 
not disposed to favor an extension of Chinese influence in 
the Korean peninsula, or anywhere else. 

The Threat of Japanese Immigration 

The Japanese immigration question also exercised some 
influence upon American policy in Asia, though in a very 
different way. 

Although tenaciously holding to the assertion of her 
rights,* the Japanese Government was very careful to avoid 
any clash with the American Government over the immigra- 
tion question during the period of treaty revision. John T. 
Swift of 'California, who had been very active in the anti- 
Chinese agitation in the United States, succeeded Richard 
B. Hubbard of Texas as American minister at Tokio in May, 
1889. Following the death of Mr. Swift at his post in 
March, 1891, Frank L. Coombs, also of California, was made 
minister for the remainder of the Harrison administration. 

*The Japanese treaty with Peru, 1873 (Art. 7), contained a stipulation to 
the effect that no restriction be placed by either government on immigrant 
laborers in any lawful capacity and that they might go freely from one country 
to the other. 



550 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

Thus, at the time when the Japanese immigration question 
was first arising, the United States was represented in Japan 
by men especially alert to note its possible dangers. i 

Swift warned his government that the treaty of 1889, f 
negotiated by Hubbard and awaiting ratification by both 
governments, contained a bi-lateral immigration clause such 
as had already been agreed to in the Japan-Mexico treaty, 
which would open the United States to Japanese immigra- 
tion as the Burlingame treaty had opened the country to 
the Chinese. For this reason the American Government 
was relieved of some embarrassments when Japan formally 
requested that the ratification of the treaty be held in abey- 
ance. Such a provision could not have secured the approval 
of the Senate in 1890. Coombs, shortly after his arrival in 
Japan, had a conference with Viscount Enomoto who prom- 
ised to bring about a satisfactory regulation of Japanese im- 
migrants by Japan, On August 22, 1892, the Minister of 
Foreign Affairs issued instructions to the governor of prefec- 
tures, requiring them to discourage immigration to the 
United States. 

"It would be needless to call your attention to the fact," he wrote, 
"that the most cordial and friendly .relations have been happ_ily 
existing between Japan and the United States; besides, our com- 
mercial interests in the United States are becoming more and 
more important; and these relations we cannot permit to be dis- 
turbed on account of such a minor question as labor immigration." 

A month later the Minister of Foreign Affairs instructed the 
Japanese consul general at Honolulu to endeavor to dis- 
suade Japanese from going to the Pacific Coast, That it 
was the policy of the Japanese Government to discourage 
undesired labor emigration was confirmed (October, 1893) 
by Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Hayashi to U. S. Minis- 
ter Edwin Dun. 

In the treaty of 1894 between the United States and , 
Japan the following paragraph was inserted to take care of | 
the immigration question, as well as to safeguard Japan in 
her policy of withholding the right of foreigners to purchase 
land in Japan: 



ASIATIC IMMIGRATION— AMERICAN POLICY 551 

"It is, however, understood that the stipulations contained in this 
and the preceding article (relating to liberty of trade, residence, 
leasing of land, ownership of property, etc.) do not in any way effect 
the laws, ordinances and regulations with regard to trade, the immi- 
gration of laborers, police and public security, which are in force or 
which may hereafter be enacted in either of the two countries." * 

Thus far the only effect of the immigration question had 
been to deter the United States from being the first of the 
great powers to ratify the revised treaty which Japan had 
proposed in 1888. Great Britain was awarded the credit, 
which more properly belonged to the United States by virtue 
of its consistent record on treaty revisions ever since 1878, 
for being the first to relieve Japan of the onerous extra- 
territorial stipulations. 

The Japanese immigration question was, however, exert- 
ing a more positive effect on American policy in another 
direction. The planters of the Hawaiian Islands, gravely 
handicapped by lack of willing labor, had encouraged the 
immigration of both Chinese and Japanese coolies. The 
treaty of 1871 with Japan had been followed by a second 
convention (March 6, 1886) by which it was agreed that the 
Japanese Government would furnish laborers, as requested, 
for Hawaii, on thirty days notice. There were in 1890 
slightly more than 12,000 Japanese in the Sandwich Islands, 
out of a total population of about 90,000. There were also 
15,000 Chinese.25 In November, 1893, at the time of the 
revolution in the islands, after the rejection of the Ameri- 
can annexation treaty, the Japanese Government sent a war 
vessel to Honolulu to protect Japanese subjects. 

After the withdrawal from the Senate of the Hawaiian 
annexation treaty by President Cleveland (March 9, 1893), 
the Japsniese Government assumed a more positive tone 
towards the newly established Hawaiian Republic. Japan 
demanded that the Japanese immigrants to Hawaii be given 
the same rights as the native Hawaiians which included the 

*"We strongly objected to this clause which America tacked on to Article 
2 but our obiections were of no avail. Mr. Griscom [Oresham], the American 
Secretary of State, absolutely refused to agree to revise the treaty at all unless 
the clause was admitted. We were loath to agree, but did so because the revi- 
sion of the English treaty was problematical on account of the probationary 
clause, and it was necessary to make a start." (Secret Memoirs of Count 
Hayashi, p. 248.) 



552 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

rights of citizenship and office-holding from which they had 
always been excluded.* Japan based this demand upon the 
most-favored-nation clause in her original treaty with 
Hawaii in 1873, and a treaty between Spain and Hawaii 
(1863) in which the Spanish had been granted the same 
rights and privileges as those enjoyed by the Hawaiians. 
The disposition of the Hawaiian Republic was to restrict all 
oriental immigration, but to this the Japanese Government 
made firm objections and in 1897 went so far as to send a 
war vessel to Honolulu with a demand for free immigration. 
Meanwhile the Republic had been unsuccessful in limiting 
the immigration by means of a restrictive legislation and at 
length arrested 1100 newly arrived Japanese with a view of 
deporting them. 

The majority report on the joint resolution for the an- 
nexation of Hawaii presented to the House May 17, 1898, 
stated that this "rapid growth of Japanese element" was "a, 
most threatening fact" in the existing Hawaiian situation 
for if the Japanese demands for citizenship were granted the 
Japanese voters (there were reported to be 24,000 Japanese 
in the islands at the time, 19,000 of them men) would con- 
trol the government and would be able to effect a revision or 
abrogation of the reciprocity treaty of 1887 by which Pearl 
Harbor had been granted to the exclusive use of the United 
States as a naval base. This argument carried much weight 
in the debate both in the House and in the Senate. Senator 
George Frisbie Hoar, who only a few months later desper- 
ately opposed the annexation of the Philippines, voted for 
the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands and rested his argu- 
ment for their acquisition in no small measure upon the 
menace of Japanese control of the islands. Senator Hoar 
stated: "They [the islands] will fall, Mr. President, if we do 
not prevent it, a prey to Japan, not by conquest but by im- 
migration. This result all parties agree that we must pre- 
vent. Japan is not, according to the opponents of annexa- 

*The constitution of Hawaii, promulgated July 7, 1887, had limited citizen- 
ship and ofHce-holding to Hawaiians and to those of either American or Euro- 
pean parentage. The Americans and Europeans were not required to forswear 
their original citizenship.^^ 



ASIATIC IMMIGRATION— AMERICAN POLICY 553 

tion of this body and of the press, to be allowed to get the 
Sandwich Islands either by force or by absorption. . . , The 
danger is, as I have said, that there will be an infusion of 
Japanese and then an attempted annexation to Japan." 
Senator Hoar urged that the possession of the islands must 
either be settled then peaceably by annexation or later by 
force in a conflict between America and Asia. 

BIBLIOGEAPHICAL NOTES 

1. The following general sources of information on Chinese immi- 

gration are recommended : J. W. Foster : "American Diplo- 
macy in the Orient/' chap. 8, — valuable because the author was 
intimately associated in public life and in the service of the 
Chinese Government with the later phases of the subject; 
Charles Denby : "China and Her People," Vol. 2, chap. 9 — 
Denby was the American minister in Peking, 1885-98 ; Alleyne 
Ireland: "China and the Powers" (privately printed, 1902), 
chap. 3 contains concise summary; Mary Roberts Coolidge: 
"Chinese Immigration" — Dr. Coolidge gave to the domestic 
phases of the subject most exhaustive study, and yet the author 
was so carried away by the injustices dealt to the Chinese as to 
fail to present adequately the fundamental issues in the con- 
flict of races. The bibliographical notes are exceptionally 
valuable. The present writer has made no very extended 
study of Chinese immigration as a domestic question aside 
from the diplomatic records of the Department of State. 

2. Marshall Corres., pp. Y8, 84-4, 116-7, 106 ; Parker Co.rres., pp. 632, 

669; Paliamentary Papers, Accounts and Papers, 43, 1857-8, 
Report to the House of Commons on the Coolie traffic, ordered 
printed July 27, 1858, p. 78. 

3. Parker Corres., p. 625 ; Reed Corres., pp. 67-76, 78, Reed to Cass, 

Jan. 13, 1858, pp.. 185, 204, 489. 

4. S. Doc. 99:34-1, pp. 119 ff. Parker Corres. on Robert Browne 

affair. 
5 Foster, p. 282, thinks the Chinese laborers in California were 
"perfectly free," and cites a great many authorities. None of 
the similar statements on this point seems to the present 
writer convincing. 

6. Table, Coolidge, p. 498. 

7. Notes from Chinese Legation, Vol. 1, Jan. 18, 1870, Burlingame 

to Fish. 

8. Denby : Vol. 2, p. 98. 

9. Coolidge is particularly valuable for tracing the various stages 

of the party conflict on the immigration question. 

10. Foster: pp. 286 ff . ; S. Rept. 689:44-2; S. Misc. Doc. 20:45-2. 

11. Negotiations of the Treaty Commission, For. Relations, 1881, 

pp. 168-203 ; J. B. Angell : "Diplomatic Relations of the United 



554 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

States and China," Amer. Jour, of Social Science, Vol. 17, 
pp. 24 ff.); Chester Holcombe: The Outlook, 1904, Apr. 23, 
pp. 993-4. 
12. China Desp., Vol. 56, Nov. 17, 1880, Angell to Blaine. This 
sentence is omitted in the dispatch as printed in For. Relations, 
1881. 
,13. St. at Large, Vol. 22, pp. 58-61. 

14. St. at Large, Vol. 23, pp. 115-118. 

15. Denby: Vol. 2, p. 105. 

16. See Pres. Arthur's opinion, Richardson's Messages, Vol. 8, p. 236. 

17. Chinese Students in U. S., For. Relations, 1872, pp. 130, 135, 

138; 1873, pp. 140, 186; 1875, p. 227; 1885, p. 144. 

18. Statutes at Large, Vol. 25, pp. 476-479. 

19. Ibid., p. 504. 

20. S. Ex. Doc. 273 :50-l. 

21. ■ For. Relations, 1889, p. 132. 

22. Pres. Harrison's Message, Apr. 4, 1892, Rejection of Henry W. 

Blair; For. Relations, 1892. 

23. St. at Large, Vol. 27, pp. 25-6. 

24. Ihid., Vol. 28, pp. 7-8. 

25. S. Ex. Doc. 76 :52-2, Table, p. 60. 

26. 7&td, p. 26. 



CHAPTER XXIX 

THE MISSIONAEIES AND AMEEICAN POLICY IN ASIA 

While a review of the broader aspects of the influence 
of the American missionaries on the social and political as 
well as the religious life of the Asiatic states is very alluring, 
we must confine ourselves rigidly to a more precise subject — 
the influence of the missionaries on American policy. It is 
discussed in the following phases : the assistance of the mis- 
sionaries either as themselves ofiicial representatives of the 
government or to those who were officials; the status as- 
signed to the missionaries in the various treaties or obtained 
by special conventions and interpretations; missionaries 
and American neutrality; and the protection of the mis- 
sionaries by the Government of the United States.^ 

Missionaries as Diplomatic and Consular Officers 

Notwithstanding the repeated requests of the American 
consuls, commissioners, and ministers from 1816, onward, 
their government made no provision for the training of a 
single interpreter for a consulate or legation until 1864.^ 
Throughout the century the American officials, only a very 
few of whom, unless they had previously been missionaries, 
had any accurate knowledge of either the written or spoken 
language of the countries to which they were assigned, were 
largely dependent in China, Japan and Korea upon either 
native interpreters, upon foreigners of other nationalities, 
or upon the missionaries. There were only four salaried 
American interpreters connected with diplomatic and con- 
sular service in China as late as 1899, according to a report 
of Minister Conger. Until about 1833, when Rev. E. C. 
Bridgman,^ the first American to acquire the Chinese lan- 

555 



556 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

guage, became available at Canton, the Americans in China 
depended very largely upon Rev. Robert Morrison, the 
British missionary employed by the East India Company, 
or upon his son John H. Morrison for both translation and 
interpreting. Bridgman, in company with Rev. David 
Abeel,* arrived in 1830. They were followed by S. Wells 
Williams^ (1833), a missionary printer, and Rev. Peter 
Parker, M. D.*^ (1834), a missionary physician. From that 
time onward Bridgman, Parker or Williams actually trans- 
acted the greater part of the American official business with 
the representatives of the Chinese Government for nearly 
forty years. 

In 1858 United States Minister Reed, who had come to 
China with scant regard for missionaries, wrote to Secretary 
of State Cass : 

"... I am bound to say further that the studies of the missionary 
and those connected with the missionary cause are essential to the 
interests of our country. Without them as interpreters the public 
business could riot be transacted. I could not but for them have 
advanced one step in the discharge of my duties here, or read, or 
written, or understood one word of correspondence or treaty stipula- 
tions. With them there has been no difficulty or embarrassments. 

"It was the case also in 1844, when Mr. Cushing's interpreters and 
assistants in all their public duties were all from the same class; in 
1853, with Mr. Marshall, and in 1854 with Mr. McLane, Dr. Bridgman, 
who was the principal assistant in all these public duties, still lives 
in an active exercise of his usefulness; and I am glad of the oppor- 
tunity of expressing to him my thanks for the incidental assistance 
and constant and most valuable counsel. ... 

"There is not an American merchant in China (and I have heard 
of but one English) who can write or read a single sentence of 
Chinese." ' 

The condition described by Mr. Reed continued, and for 
the remainder of the century, except for the briefest inter- 
vals, there were some American missionaries employed either 
in important posts in the consulates or in the legation in 
China, and it was these men rather than their titular su- 
periors who, in most cases, had the actual contacts with the 
Chinese ofiicials. A similar condition existed in Siam as 
well as in Korea. Chester Holcombe, formerly a missionary 
and then secretary and Charge in the legation at Peking, did 



MISSIONARIES AND AMERICAN POLICY IN ASIA 557 

at least half the work in the negotiation of the Shufeldt 
treaty with Li Hung Chang; and Dr. H. N. Allen, the first 
American missionary in Korea, and subsequently secretary 
of the Korean legation and then American minister at Seoul, 
carried the brunt of the diplomatic correspondence between 
Korea and the United States. Indeed at least one instance 
is known where an American minister, nameless in this 
record, lay hopelessly intoxicated in his legation while the 
missionaries not only ministered to his physical needs but 
even wrote the dispatches to the Department of State at a 
very critical moment in political affairs. 

Due to the fact that the Dutch language was the lingua 
franca in Japan and that the Japanese very quickly acquired 
English the problem of interpretation was never so difficult 
in Japan as elsewhere in Asia. For this reason and also, 
perhaps, because the American Government was especially 
careful not to offend the anti-Christian prejudices of the 
Japanese inherited from the old Jesuit days, the missionaries 
never played a prominent part in the direct relations of the 
two governments. 

The Chinese Repository ^ (1832-51), of which Bridgman 
and Williams were not merely the editors but to which they 
were often the chief contributors, is easily the most accurate 
and faithful chronicle which has come down to us of the 
period which it covers. Indeed, a close comparison of the 
Repository with the Treaty of Wanghia shows that Caleb 
Cushing in his negotiations in 1844 was very greatly in- 
debted to Bridgman, not merely for his work as interpre- 
ter but also as adviser. Several of the articles of the treaty 
appear to have grown directly out of discussions which had 
preceded them in the Repository. 

On Cushing's departure Dr. Parker immediately entered 
upon a distinguished service as unofficial and then official 
interpreter and secretary to the legation. This service must 
not be overlooked in an appraisal of his less valuable ser- 
vices as Commissioner (1855-7). Until 1854 the consulates 
at Amoy and Ningpo, when they were cared for at all, were 
for the most part in charge of missionaries. The remarkable 



558 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

services of S. Wells Williams for the government began 
officially in 1853-4 as interpreter in the Perry expedition, 
and were resumed a year later when he resigned from mis- 
sionary work and became secretary and interpreter in the 
legation, a position which he held for twenty years, becom- 
ing during the period charge d'affaires no less than seven 
times. After 1880 the m^issionary became less important as 
an interpreter in the legation because Li Hung Chang, with 
whom much of the more important business was transacted, 
had provided himself with interpreters, among them W. H. 
Pethick, drawn from the American consular service, to act 
as his personal interpreter. Meanwhile, however, other mis- 
sionaries had been drawn into the consular service and in 
succeeding decades rose to positions of great responsibility 
either in it or in the diplomatic service. 

A less direct yet even broader influence on American 
policy in Asia came from the books published by the mis- 
sionaries. Until 1847 the American public knew about 
China chiefly through British writers, many of whose books 
were republished in the United States. In that year a New 
York publisher brought out the first edition of Williams' 
"Middle Kingdom," though not until nearly every other 
publisher had declined the venture and the company which 
undertook it was guaranteed against loss by a Canton mer- 
chant.^ One of the objects of this monumental work was 
to put an end to "that peculiar and almost indefinable im- 
pression of ridicule" which Williams thought was being be- 
stowed upon the Chinese "as if they were the apes of Euro- 
peans and their social state, arts and government the bur- 
lesque of the same things in Christendom." For the next 
forty years or more it is not too much to say that the books 
written by missionaries (including those of W. E. Griffis 
who, while not a missionary, occupied a similar position and 
view-point) were practically the only American source of 
any adequacy or accuracy for the formation of public opin- 
ion about China, Japan and Korea. During the greater part 
of the nineteenth century Americans looked upon Asia 
through the eyes of missionaries. 



MISSIONARIES AND AMERICAN POLICY IN ASIA 559 

The American missionary was not merely the interpreter 
for his countrymen; he also played a most important role 
as the interpreter of his country to the Asiatic. Bridgman 
published (1838) a geographical history of the United States 
in the Chinese language which was twice revised (1846, 
1862), and exerted an influence in predisposing the Chinese 
Government to friendliness towards the United States. ^'^ 
The linguistic studies of the missionaries, their dictionaries 
and similar works, opened up the channels of communica- 
tion. While the British and Continental missionaries 
shared in these labors, until 1858 the Americans were the 
leaders. With the exception of Rev. W. A. P. Martin,^ ^ 
who entered the Chinese service in 1862 as a teacher in the 
Tungwen College, later becoming president of the Imperial 
University, and Rev. D. B. McCartee, who held important 
posts in the Chinese diplomatic service, American mission- 
aries did not to a great degree become employees of the 
Chinese Government. But in Japan and in Korea there 
were notable instances where missionaries like Verbeck, 
Allen and Hulbert occupied official positions of influence. ^^ 
Verbeck is credited with having proposed and stimulated 
the organization of the Iwakura Embassy from Japan in 
1872. 

The Status of Missionaries under the Treaties 

The legal status of the missionaries in the various coun- 
tries to which they went is not always easy to define. In 
China, Japan and Korea the American missionary intro- 
duced himself by subterfuge which was accompanied by the 
tolerance and indulgence of native officials. The first mis- 
sionaries in Canton in the early part of the nineteenth cen^ 
tury were not only without legal right to be there but were 
in violation of imperial regulations. They were sponsored 
by obliging hong merchants who represented them to be 
clerks attached to the mercantile houses. But in 1844, due 
to the gratitude of one of the subordinate Chinese com- 
missioners whose parents had been patients of Dr. Parker, 



560 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

the right to erect churches at the open ports was inserted 
in Article 17 of the Gushing treaty, at the suggestion of the 
Chinese.^ ^ The treaty, however, contained no stipulation 
conferring upon the missionaries any liberty to seek con- 
verts. Later, through the efforts of the French envoy, the 
Emperor issued a rescript granting a degree of religious 
toleration.* ^* This rescript referred only to the '^religion of 
the Lord of Heaven," i.e., the Roman Catholic faith. f 
Kiying, without the formality of securing a second imperial 
rescript, followed with an order that the Imperial proclama- 
tion should apply to Protestants as well as Catholics. 

To neither Catholic nor Protestant missionaries was the 
rescript very satisfactory. While it legalized their work in 
the open ports it shut them off from the interior of the 
country where the Catholic missionaries had already been 
at work for many years. It was estimated by Abeel that in 
1830 the Roman Catholic missionaries were employing no 
less than four bishops and nineteen priests — French, Portu- 
guese, Italian and Spanish — and claimed more than 200,000 
converts. These labors were by no means confined to Macao, 
there being missionaries even in far-away Szechuan. After 
the treaties of 1844 the missionaries, Protestant and Catho- 
lic, American and European alike, quickly spread to the 
newly opened ports, and notwithstanding the stipulations of 

* "Kiying, imperial commissioner, minister of state, and governor general of 
Kwang-tung and Kwang-si, respectfull.v addresses the throne by memorial. 

"On examination it appears that the religion of the Lord of Heaven is that 
professed by all the nations of the West ; that its main object is to encourage 
the good and suppress the v?icked ; that since its introduction into China dur- 
ing the Ming dynasty it has never been interdicted, that subsequently, when 
Chinese, practising this religion, often made it a covert for wickedness, even 
to the seducing of wives and daughters, and to the deceitful extraction of the 
pupils from the eyes of the sick, government made an investigation and inflicted 
punishment, as is on rec&rd : and that in the reign of Kiaking special clauses 
were first laid down for the punishment of the guilty. The prohibition, there- 
fore, was directed against evil doing, under the covert of religion, and not 
against the religion professed by the Western foreign nations. 

"Now the request of the French Aml)assador. Lagrene, that those Chinese, 
doing well, who practise this religion, be exempt from criminality, seems feasible. 
It is right, therefore, to make the request, and earnestly to crave celestial favor 
to grant that henceforth all natives and foreigners without distinction, who 
learn and practise the religion of the Lord of Heaven and do not excite 
trouble by improper conduct, be exempted from criminality. ... As to those 
of the French and othor foreign nations who practise the religion, let them 
only be permitted to build churches at the five ports open for commercial inter- 
course. They must not presume to enter the country to propagate religion. ... 

"Let it be according to the counsel (of Kiying).- This is from the 
Emperor." . 

t Subsequently the term "Religion of the Lord Jesus" was introduced into 
the Chinese vocabulary to designate the Protestant faith. 



MISSIONARIES AND AMERICAN POLICY IN ASIA 561 

the rescript, frequently made tours into the surrounding 
country. The most awkward feature of the open violation 
of the laws of the empire was that regardless of whether 
their activities were lawful or not, the missionaries were 
exempted from Chinese jurisdiction by extraterritoriality. 
The British authorities made some efforts to restrain British 
and even American missionaries, but the French and the 
American Governments did not.^^ While no specific viola- 
tions of the law on the part of the American missionaries 
were brought to the attention of the American Government 
in the next ten years, fully half the claims, trivial in amount 
yet several in number, for reparation and damages, were 
filed by missionaries who had proceeded to establish mission 
work in locations which were in violation of the Chinese 
interpretation of the treaty, and which had been resented in 
some way either by the officials, the gentry, or the rabble 
of the various localities. While these claims were usually 
settled by conciliation and compromise, they created no 
small amount of irritation. 

The actual negotiations of the American treaty of Tien- 
tsin were in the hands of Dr. S. Wells Williams and Rev. 
W. A. P. Martin, the latter acting as interpreter of Man- 
darin which Williams did not at that time speak. At the 
preliminary negotiations at Taku, before the destruction of 
the forts by the British and French, Dr. Williams drew up 
an article stipulating full toleration for all persons profess- 
ing Christianity, and permission for American missionaries 
to travel anywhere in the country, renting or buying houses 
or land, and living with their families. The Chinese commis- 
sioner rejected t?iis article as being too broad. But Count 
Putiatin secured an article which would permit the Russian 
missionaries to propagate as well as practice their faith in all 
open localities {"toutes les localites ouvertes") . This privi- 
lege was to be governed by passports to be issued by the 
consuls in conference with the local Chinese authorities. 

At Tientsin Dr. Williams, therefore, drafted a similar 
article for the American treaty, but Mr. Reed objected to it 
because of the passport provision and also because it as- 



562 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

signed to the consul and the Chinese authorities the respon- 
sibility of determining what missionaries should be worthy 
to receive passes. This latter provision was then stricken 
out, and the article submitted to the Chinese. They ob- 
jected to it and made a proposal to limit the American mis- 
sionaries to the open ports, and to make their number sub- 
ject to the determination of the consuls alone. This was 
less than had been secured in the Russian treaty which was 
already signed, and was therefore very unsatisfactory to Dr. 
Williams. Mr. Reed was impatient to sign the treaty the 
following day, and would have omitted the article altogether 
had it been necessary to secure the desired consummation of 
his task. However, Dr. Williams persisted and in the morn- 
ing was able to draft an article which was acceptable.^^ 
It reads : 

"Article 29. — The principles of the Christian religion, as professed 
by the Protestant and Roman Catholic churches, are recognized as 
teaching men to do good, and to do to others as they would have 
others do to them. Hereafter those who quietly profess and teach 
these doctrines shall not be harassed or persecuted on account of their 
faith. Any person, whether citizen of the United States, or Chinese 
convert, who, according to these tenets, peaceably teaches and prac- 
tises the principles of Christianity shall in no case be interfered with 
or molested." 

It will be noted that this article omitted all definition 
of locality in which the missionaries might live and work, 
and that by the insertion of a provision for religious tolera- 
tion within the empire into a foreign treaty, China was 
actually making as much of a surrender of those sovereign 
rights in domestic legislation whi<3h states usually reserve 
for themselves, as in the commercial provisions of the Lord 
Elgin treaty. The British treaty contained an article very 
similar to that in the American treaty. The French treaty 
carried provision for missionary liberty a step further by 
stipulating that "an efficacious protection shall be given to 
the missionaries who peaceably go into the interior. . . ." 
Two years later the French Convention of Peking (October 
25, 1860) added very important concessions for Roman 
Catholics. China engaged to proclaim throughout the Em- 



MISSIONARIES AND AMERICAN POLICY IN ASIA 563 

pire that people were permitted to propagate and practice 
the 'teachings of the Lord of Heaven,' that those who indis- 
criminately arrested Christians would be duly punished ; and 
further, that all real estate formerly owned by Christians 
and confiscated at the time when the Catholics were expelled 
from the empire, would be paid for. The right to rent and 
purchase land and erect buildings thereon in all the prov- 
inces was also inserted, surreptitiously, in the Chinese text 
of the Convention. This latter provision, although not 
binding upon the Chinese since the French text alone was 
authoritative, was later actually assented to by the Chinese 
Government (1865).^''^ 

The aggressiveness of the American missionaries in their 
disposition to force the opening of the empire is notable. 
It is entirely in accord with what had been the prevailing 
spirit in missionary circles from the beginning. Before 1858 
the missionary suffered far more from the restriction im- 
posed upon him than did the merchant. Consequently the 
missionary was the more impatient for greater liberty under 
treaty protection. It has already been noted that Dr. 
Parker, as commissioner, would have embarked upon a pro- 
gram looking towards the dismemberment of the empire by 
the appropriation of Formosa for the United States. In 
proposing this project he appears to have been reflecting a 
spirit which was at the time far more characteristic of the 
missionaries than of the merchants. Even the implacable 
Lord Elgin, fresh from his victories at Tientsin, was a little 
shocked at the sentiments of Dr. Bridgman, dean of the 
American missionaries, who appears to have been willing 
to go him one better.^ ^ The missionaries were, in 1858, 
greatly influenced by the Taiping Rebellion with which they 
for the most part greatly sympathized, and which seemed 
to hold out the prospect of a complete revolution. For the 
Manchu government the missionaries had scant respect, and 
the sovereignty and integrity of the Empire seemed to them 
much less important considerations than the opening of 
doors to evangelization. Theirs was not a very farsighted 
policy. 



564 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

One may also pause at this point, which was the turning 
point in all missionary work, to speculate as to the impres- 
sion which the American missionaries had made upon the 
Chinese. To the Imperial officials, wholly ignorant of the 
Western world, the distinction between the relation of the 
French Government to Roman Catholic missionaries and 
converts and the relation of the American Government to 
American missionaries could not have been very obvious. 
The Americans made much of the fact that in the United 
States there was complete separation of Church and State, 
and yet in China there were Bridgman, Parker and Williams 
negotiating the treaty of Wanghia, there was Parker enter- 
ing the diplomatic service and rising to the highest rank, 
there were Williams and Martin at Taku and Tientsin, and 
at the same time there were the missionaries in frequent 
communication and open sympathy with the Taipings at 
Nanking. Not only had the Taiping-wang borrowed the 
color of the doctrines he was proclaiming from the mission- 
aries, but in 1860 it was the Rev. Issachar J. Roberts, the 
chief rebel's old teacher, who proceeded to Nanking and, 
invested with yellow robes and a crown, became the erst- 
while minister of foreign affairs in the rebel camp.^^ Chris- , 
tianity in either its Catholic or Protestant forms was a di§-| 
integrating influence in the Manchu Empire and it must 
have been difficult for the American missionaries to free 
themselves from the suspicion which was freely harbored 
against the French missionaries that they were in someii 
undefined way the agents of a government which sought the ' ^ 
disruption of China. 

The American missionaries entered Japan without the 
protection of any express treaty stipulation for their work. 
The laws of Japan against the Christian religion were well 
known and Commodore Perry was instructed to make clear 
the American separation of Church and State. No mention 
of religion appears to have occurred in the negotiation of 
the treaty of 1854. But before Harris had negotiated the 
treaties of 1857 and 1858 the Dutch had secured toleration 



MISSIONARIES AND AMERICAN POLICY IN ASIA 565 

for the worship of "their own or the Christian religion" 
within their own dwelUngs, One of the projects nearest to 
the heart of Townsend Harris was to secure the opening of 
Japan to American missionaries and he was most careful to 
impress the authorities with his own personal devotion to 
Christian faith and practice. He had, however, at length 
to content himself with an article on religious freedom which 
merely enlarged slightly the privileges already granted to 
the Dutch. Americans were to be permitted the free exer- 
cise of their religion, the erection of suitable places of wor- 
ship, and on the other hand were not to "do anything that 
may be calculated to excite religious animosity." Never- 
theless several of the American missionary societies, already 
informed of the possible opening for their work in Japan by 
S. Wells Williams and the chaplains of Perry's fleet, had 
undertaken to meet the situation. Rev. Guido Verbeck, 
born in Holland and in 1858 an applicant for American 
citizenship, was sent to Nagasaki by tfie Reformed Dutch 
church. Upon his arrival he found Dr. J. C. Hepburn, 
Presbyterian, and Rev. John Liggins and M. C. Williams, 
Episcopalian missionaries, had preceded him to their posts 
to which they had been transferred from China.-^ The 
existing prohibitions against aggressive evangelization were 
not serious handicaps for there had to be, just as previously 
in China, a large amount of language study before the mis- 
sionaries could enter effectively upon their duties. Mis- 
sionary work in Japan began, as elsewhere, with educational 
and medical service. Meanwhile the missionaries enjoyed 
merely the protection which was extended to all citizens 
under the treaty. 

The course of American missions in Japan was in some 
respects quite different from that in China. Although the 
government was prone to look upon the Christianization of 
Japanese subjects as undermining loyalty to the Empire and 
the Mikado,* nevertheless the missionary, as a teacher of 
Western civilization, became more and more acceptable to 

*"We . . . obtained from their high officers the distinct and positive avowal 
that the Mikado's government is based on the Shintoo creed, and for its per- 



566 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

the Japanese, who were, unlike the Chinese, most eager to 
learn. As Japan entered into the long contest for treaty 
revision the westernization of Japan became a cult which 
had the support and aggressive encouragement of the high- 
est Japanese authorities, and the missionaries greatly- 
profited. Influential ofiicials and Japanese students sent 
abroad to study became Christians and in Japan formed for 
the missionaries a substantial constituency such as did not 
exist in China at any time in the nineteenth century. Hav- 
ing established themselves in the treaty ports the mission- 
aries began gradually to extend their work into the interior, 
using passports which granted them the right to travel for 
"health or scientific research." This subterfuge was winked 
at by the Japanese authorities until about 1888 when public 
opinion began to undergo a reaction against such rapid 
westernization of the Empire. From that time onward for 
a few years the authorities became more critical of the 
presence of missionaries in the interior, some of whom had 
openly established regular mission stations where they re- 
mained for long periods without other authorization than 
their passports. 

In 1890 the anti-foreign feeling in Japan expressed itself 
in attacks on several missionaries, one of whom was an 
American. The American minister asked for a declaration 
of policy from the Japanese Government, and Foreign Min- 
ister, Count Aoki, stated that while the practices of the 
missionaries as regards travel in the interior were irregular, 
their privileges would not be withdrawn. -- 

In the missionary question, as well as in so many other 
respects, Japan became far more tactful towards the Chris- 
tian nations than did China. Within a decade after the 
opening of Japan to trade a discovery was made that in 
southern Japan communities of Japanese Roman Catholic 
Christians, their faith and practice somewhat corrupted by 
their long isolation, had been able to exist during the long 

petuity depends upon the maintenance of that faith at all hazards. That they 
foresee in the propagation of Christianity the overthrow of this faith and the 
consequent fall of the Mikado's dynasty. . . ." (De Long to Fish, Jan. 22, i 
1870.) =1 



MISSIONARIES AND AMERICAN POLICY IN ASIA 567 

period since the Catholics were expelled from Japan in the 
early part of the seventeenth century. One of the first edicts 
issued by the restored Mikado in 1868 renewed the prohibi- 
tions against Christianity, and forthwith the removal and 
banishment of the newly discovered Christians was begun. 
This action drew a strong and identic protest from the 
foreign representatives which was warmly supported by the 
American Government. Seward, apparently fearing that the 
persecution of Christians might lead to an intervention of 
foreign nations with direful results to the Empire, instructed 
Van Valkenburgh to convey to the Japanese authorities a 
very blunt warning. The persecution of the native Chris- 
tians continued and two years later Secretary of State Fish 
took up with the British, French and German governments 
the question of joint action to restrain Japan. Lord Claren- 
don replied that it seemed unwise to take any action which 
would in any way embarrass the new sovereign in the estab- 
lishment of his newly devised domestic administration, and 
the matter was dropped. ^^ 

The Japanese, however, were quick to realize in 1872 
when the Iwakura Embassy reached the United States that 
the persecution of Christians was depriving Japan of the 
confidence of Christian nations which was so essential to 
the accomplishment of treaty revision. When Okubo and 
Ito were sent back to Japan for full powers and instructions 
for the proposed treaty with the United States they carried 
the message from the Embassy that Japan must abandon 
the program for the extirpation of Christianity.^^ Mean- 
while the missionaries themselves had been winning the 
confidence of the authorities. Verbeck had already been 
called to Tokio to organize the Imperial University, and 
not a few of the American teachers who had been secured 
for the government schools were stoutly maintaining their 
purpose to engage in missionary work in an unofficial and 
personal way. The Japanese Government, at a time when 
Chinese authorities were seriously considering the possibility 
of expelling the missionaries, changed its policy and began 
to conciliate if not to welcome them. This contrast in policy 



568 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

was as profitable to Japan as it was costly to China, in the 
formation of public opinion. Between the American and 
the Japanese governments there never was any conflict or 
irritation on the question of missionaries or Christianity 
after 1870. 

In Korea American missionary work started in much the 
same extra-legal way as in Japan and China. Catholic 
Christianity had been introduced into the peninsula by a 
Chinese priest in 1794.-^ He was put to death in 1801 but 
the Seminaire des Missions Etrangeres of Paris took up the 
project and renewed the work under French priests. Some 
priests were decapitated in 1839. The massacre of 1866, 
resulting in the energetic action of M. de Bellonet and Ad- 
miral Roze, has already been referred to. France had as- 
sumed the protectorate of Roman Catholic missions and 
converts in the East and before 1880 had made clear that the 
disturbance of Christian converts was likely to be followed 
by demands on the part of France, not merely for large in- 
demnities, but even for the surrender of territory. Korea 
was both anti-Christian and anti-foreign and China was in 
fear that the unauthorized projects of Bellonet might some 
day be renewed in more authoritative fashion. When Com- 
modore Shufeldt arrived at Tientsin in 1881 he found that 
while Li Hung Chang was willing to assist in securing a 
treaty with Korea he was equally disposed to draft a com- 
pact in which missionary work would be prohibited. The 
first draft prepared by the Viceroy and submitted to Shu- 
feldt and Holcombe contained a prohibition against the 
importation of religious books which was framed to accom- 
plish this purpose. Upon the representation of Holcombe 
that such a stipulation would probably defeat the ratifica- 
tion of the treaty in the United States, the Viceroy with- 
drew it, leaving the treaty without any reference to reli- 
gion.-*' By the treaty of 1882 the American missionary 
enjoyed in Korea only the rights which belonged to all 
American citizens. 

The missionaries, long eager to enter the Hermit King- 
dom, appeared at Seoul in 1883-4. Dr. H. N. Allen opened 



MISSIONARIES AND AMERICAN POLICY IN ASIA 569 

a government hospital (February, 1885) and two months 
later a regular Presbyterian evangelistic mission was opened 
by Rev. H. G. Underwood.-''' Soon after this the Methodist 
Episcopal church entered Korea with Rev. W. B. Scranton, 
M. D., and Rev. H. G. Appenzeller.-^ Another Christian 
influence was introduced when Korea officially requested 
the American Government to nominate some school 
teachers and Messrs. Gilmore, Bunker and Hulbert, edu- 
cated in an American theological seminary, arrived in the 
summer of 1886. American missions, which occupied the 
field to a greater extent than British or Continental, not 
only prospered in Korea but won the confidence of the 
highest authorities, including the king and queen. Under 
the provisions of the British and German treaties, by means 
of the most-favored-nation clause in the American treaty, 
they entered the interior and established sub-stations far 
removed from the treaty ports. These Americans, who came 
in time to outnumber the mercantile representatives, be- 
came sources of a very strong unofficial American influence. 
Thus emerged a very difficult problem for the American 
Government which will be discussed in the following section. 

Missionaries and Neutrality 

Because of the wise and conciliatory policy of Japan the 
missionaries within the Empire were never placed in a posi- 
tion which might be considered as equivalent to hostility to 
the existing government. In both China and Korea very 
different situations developed, one in connection with the 
Taiping Rebellion and the other in the matter of Korean 
independence. 

The influence of the missionaries on the beginnings of 
the Taiping Rebellion has already been noted. The sym- 
pathy of the Protestant missionaries with the Taipings, 
which continued at least until 1860, has also been men- 
tioned. When, in 1853, the American Government adopted 
toward the rebellion a policy of technical neutrality and 
non-interference, and when at the same time Marshall 



570 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

ignored his instructions and adopted the poHcy of sustaining 
and supporting the Imperial authority, the attitude and 
sympathy of the American missionaries became a great 
obstacle to the accompHshment of his purpose.-^ He en- 
joined them to neutrality, but at least one of them defied 
him and visited the rebel camp at Nanking.^*^ Marshall's 
only recourse, for the enforcement of his injunction, was 
the public withdrawal of the protection of the United States 
from those who violated it. He had no power to force them 
to desist. At the same time the country was in great tur- 
moil, the Imperial power was paralyzed, and the mission- 
aries might indulge their sympathies with the utmost im- 
punity. Meanwhile their government in Washington, by 
no means as positive in its convictions as their representa- 
tive in China, was disposed to look upon the revolution 
without disfavor. The missionaries were in this one respect 
in a common class with the smugglers. The American Gov- 
ernment had taken the position that it was the duty of 
China to enforce her own laws, and so long as the Imperial 
Government was unable to prevent the importation of 
opium, or munitions for the rebels, or to prevent the com- 
munication of the missionaries with Nanking, there was 
nothing to be done. No effective solution of the problem 
was devised and it solved itself a few years later when the 
missionaries, in common with other foreigners, both officials 
and others, came to see that their confidence in the rebels 
had been misplaced. 

From the very beginning of diplomatic relations between 
the United States and Korea the American Government 
sought to discourage the Koreans from assuming that the 
American treaty implied any more than was stated, viz., 
that the United States recognized the independence of the 
kingdom. The good offices clause was not to be interpreted 
as including any protectorate functions whatever. The mis- 
sionaries, however, were in a different position from the 
diplomatic representatives. Very early in their work Li 
Hung Chang and his representative, Yuan Shi Kai, by 
opposing and obstructing them, forced the missionaries into 



MISSIONARIES AND AMERICAN POLICY IN ASIA 571 

opposition to the gradually unfolding purposes of China. 
The missionaries proceeded on the theory that the govern- 
ment which was most favorable to their work was the best 
government for the kingdom. The reduction of Korea to a 
province of China would mean the extension to Korea of 
the anti-foreign and anti-Christian influences which from 
the time of the Tientsin massacre were preparing the way 
in China for the Boxer uprising. As the Korean Govern- 
ment became more and more friendly towards them, the 
missionaries repaid the confidence with a sturdy and char- 
acteristically American support of Korean claims to de facto 
as well as de jure independence. This support was, in turn, 
a great encouragement to the Koreans. It encouraged them 
to oppose Yuan Shi Kai in the period preceding the Sino- 
Japanese War, and it was an even greater encouragement 
to the opposition which arose against the intrigues of 
Japan and Russia in the years that followed. That it misled 
the Korean people into the assumption that the American 
Government would, in some time of emergency, intervene 
and assume protectorate functions over the peninsula, there 
can be little doubt. 

After the Sino-Japanese War Seoul became a center of 
incredible intrigue exceeding even that which preceded the 
war. The American missionaries openly sided with the king 
in his feeble efforts to preserve the independence of his 
kingdom. Both the Russian and the Japanese governments 
at different times complained at the actions of the mission- 
aries. At length, unwillingly, and upon repeated orders 
from the Department of State, the American Minister sent 
to every American citizen in Korea the following notice 
which was also published in The Independent (Seoul, May 
15, 1897): 

"Legation of the United States. 
Seoul, Korea, May 11, 1897. 
Sir, — 

By direction of the Secretary of State I am required to make 
publicly known to every citizen of the United States sojourning or 
being temporarily or permanently in Korea, the repeatedly expressed 
view of the Government of the United States that it behooves loyal 



572 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

citizens of the United States in any foreign country whatsoever to 
observe the same scrupulous abstention from participating in the 
domestic concerns thereof which is internationally incumbent upon 
his government. They should strictly refrain from any expression of 
opinion or from giving advice concerning the internal management 
of the country, or from any intermeddling in its political questions. 
If they do so, it is at their own risk and peril. Neither the repre- 
sentative of this government in the country of their sojourn, nor the 
Government of the United States itself, can approve of any such 
action on their part, and should they disregard this advice it may 
perhaps not be found practicable to adequately protect them from 
their own consequences. Good American citizens, quitting their own 
land and resorting to another, can best display their devotion to the 
country of their allegiance and best justify a claim to its continued 
and efficient protection while in foreign parts, by confining them- 
selves to their legitimate avocations, whether missionary work, or 
teaching in schools, or attending the sick, or other calling or business 
for which they resort to a foreign country, 

I am Sir, 

Yours respectfully, 
John M. B. Sill, 
Minister Resident and Consul General." 



Persecution of Christians in China 

The treaty of Tientsin had created an anomalous posi- 
tion for American missionaries in China. They were citizens 
of a government which had held consistently to the separa- 
tion of church and state, and they were thoroughly imbued 
with conscientious convictions as to the Tightness of this 
principle. Under other circumstances they probably would 
not have demanded preferential treatment, and yet the 
treaty unquestionably created them a special and preferred 
class with privileges not accorded to the mercantile popula- 
tion. Their privileges were still further defined, if not 
increased, by the French treaty and the Convention of I860, 
the advantages of which they might claim under the most- 
favored-nation clause. By the Berthemy Convention 
(1865) all vagueness as to rights was removed when China 
definitely conceded the right of the French missionaries to 
purchase land as well as pursue their calling in every pro- 
vince. And yet the missionaries felt themselves to be on not 
very certain ground. Did they, or did they not, have all the 



MISSIONARIES AND AMERICAN POLICY IN ASIA 573 

rights of the Roman Catholic missionaries? There was not 
entire agreement among the succeeding American ministers 
and secretaries of state on this point.^^ The American Gov- 
ernment appears to have been reluctant to recognize that the 
missionaries in China were a preferred class, and the mis- 
sionaries themselves do not appear to have coveted the dis- 
tinction, but in time all the treaty rights granted to the 
French missionaries and applicable to the Americans were 
claimed for them by their government and exercised. The 
missionaries established themselves in the interior, they 
acquired "perpetual leases" of land, and they demanded pro- 
tection from the Chinese authorities. Their government 
collected their claims for damages and in at least one in- 
stance the American minister, with the approval of the 
Department of State, intervened to secure the religious tol- 
eration for native Christians which was guaranteed by 
treaty.^^ In 1896, following an outburst of anti-missionary 
and anti-foreign riots in various provinces the American 
Government secured a direct and explicit statement from 
China that the missionaries had every right which had been 
granted to the French. ^^ In the course of years the mis- 
sionary question as viewed by the American Government 
had come to be one of national prestige. To accept less for 
the Americans than was given to the French would be inter- 
preted by the Chinese, so it was believed, as a weakness on 
the part of the United States which would lead to even 
greater troubles between the two governments."* The mis- 
sionary question was another illustration of the fact that 
direct American relations with the Asiatic states were sub- 
ject to the modifications of international competition. 

The rights granted to the missionaries were made the 
basis by the merchants for a demand for further opening 
of the country to trade, and it seems reasonable to believe 
that at any time in the century at least after 1870, the 
Chinese Government would have at least removed all mis- 
sionaries from the interior had it been free to do so.^^ The 
Protestant missionaries were objectionable to the local au- 
thorities, to the gentry, and to large masses of the ignorant 



574 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

populace because their converts rejected ancestor worship, 
refused to join in the expenses of idol-processions and temple 
repairs, and because of their generally disturbing influence 
on the indolent and corrupt practices of the local authori- 
ties.^*' The Catholic missionaries were still more objection- 
able because they claimed official rank in the hierarchy of 
Chinese officials, because they interfered where their con- 
Verts were concerned with the operations of the courts and 
police, and because, through the French Government, they 
assumed a protectorate over the Chinese converts. They 
were an imperium in imperio. Religious toleration became 
to the ruling classes less and less a voluntary toleration and 
assumed the character of still another imposition by foreign 
powers. Thus the missionaries came to be placed in 
an utterly false position such as they had escaped in Japan 
and Korea, and yet from which it was difficult for either 
them or their government to retire. Christianity was, in a 
measure, like opium, being imposed upon China without the 
consent of the people. The Chinese were free to abstain 
from either, but they were not free to prohibit them. No 
candid friend of Christianity and the missionaries can well 
shut his eyes to these facts. 

With the details of the various riots from the massacre 
of Tientsin (1870) until the Boxer uprising we cannot be 
concerned. In general we may note that in these riots the 
Protestants suffered less than the Catholics, and among the 
former the American missions suffered least of all. This fact 
may be offered in testimony that the affairs of the American 
missions were managed with greater tact, with more concih- 
ation, or were less associated in the minds of the Chinese 
than were other missions with the suspected territorial 
designs of foreign governments. The American as well as 
the British Government consistently abstained from any 
cooperative, action with other powers which would have 
tended to support the pretensions of France for the Roman 
Catholic missionaries and in time, i.e., in the second Cleve- 
land administration where the entire cooperative policy was 
repudiated, the United States withdrew from any coopera- 



MISSIONARIES AND AMERICAN POLICY IN ASIA 575 

tion whatever with other governments in the settlement of 
missionary troubles. 

China was blindly and injudiciously contending for the 
integrity not merely of an empire but also of a form of social 
organization both of which were disintegrating before her 
eyes. Had China been possessed of more intelligent and 
skillful rulers she might have won the sympathy of the 
Americans in her hopeless struggle for there was a measure 
of justice on her side, but her leaders were utterly incompe- 
tent to meet the situation, and China lost the confidence she 
so sorely needed to sustain her claims to Korea and against 
Japan. The missionaries were contending for the establish- 
ment of religious toleration and missionary freedom without 
which it seemed that their work could not run its natural 
course. When one compares the hospitality they received 
from the Japanese and Korean governments which were 
never coerced by the foreign powers to give it, with the 
hostility of the Chinese who had granted freedom to mis- 
sionaries in 1858 and 1860 only after they had been intimi- 
dated by the powers, one wonders whether there is not here 
a clear case of cause and effect. It would appear that the 
Christian missionary work in China did not receive a net 
benefit from the protection of foreign governments. 

On the other hand the philanthropic and spiritual inter- 
est of an increasing number of Americans in the welfare of 
China, which was directly created by the missionaries, was 
the one constant force operating upon American public 
opinion in the last decades of the nineteenth century. The 
commercial interest of the United States in China rose and 
fell with the trade returns. The political interest ran par- 
allel with the course of trade. Both declined steadily from 
1860 to 1895. In general one may conclude that while the 
missionary contributed much to the disintegration of the 
Chinese Empire in the last century, and the weakness result- 
ing from the prostration of China must by itself now be 
looked upon as a catastrophe, he was at the same time creat- 
ing much which in more recent years has operated strongly 
to repair the damage which had been done. 



576 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

From the history of Christian missions in China, Japan 
and Korea one conclusion stands out sharply: much harm 
and little good has come from governmental patronage and 
protection of missionary work; and the missionary renders 
the most enduring service to the people among whom he 
labors when he separates himself farthest from political 
concerns. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

1. The best general sources on the missionary question are : the 

various volumes of Foreign Relations, to consult which their 
index is an indispensable guide; Moore's Digest which con- 
tains important excerpts and references under appropriate 
headings in the sections on China, Japan and Korea, respec- 
tively; S. Wells Williams' "Life and Letters"; W. A. P. 
Martin's "Cycle of Cathay"; Charles Denby: "China and 
Her People," Vol. 1, chap. 17 ; Chester Holcombe : "The Real 
Chinese Question," chap. 6. The Missionary question in 
Foreign Relations is presented more completely than almost 
any other subject. Practically nothing of importance in the 
dispatches was omitted. 

2. For interpreters in the consular and diplomatic service in China 

see H. Misc. Docs. 31 :45-2, part 1, pp. 480 ff. 

3. Eliza J. Gillett Bridgman: "Life and Labors of Elijah Cole- 

man Bridgman" (New York, 1864) — a very inadequate book. 

4. David Abeel : "Journal of a Residence in China" (2d Ed., N. Y., 

1836). 

5. S. Wells Williams' "Life and Letters" ; Williams' Journal in 

Proceedings of the N. China Branch of the Royal Asiatic 
Society, and in the Japan Asiatic Society, respectively, al- 
ready referred to. 

6. Life, Letters and Journals of Rev. and Hon. Peter Parker, M. D. 

7. Reed Corres., p. 360, June 20, 1858, Reed to Cass. 

8. "Chinese Repository," Vols. 1-20, 1832-1851, Canton, Macao and 

Victoria. The field of the Repository, after its cessation, was 
occupied by the China Review and the Chinese Recorder. 

9. Williams' "Life and Letters," p. 155. 

10. An excellent review of the labors of the various American mis- 

sionaries will be found in "Memorials of Protestant Mis- 
sionaries in China" (Shanghai, 1867). ^ 

11. Martin: "Cycle of Cathay." 

12. Griffis : "Verbeck of Japan" ; Allen : "Chronological Index of 

Korea" ; Homer B. Hulbert : "The Passing of Korea." 

13. "Life of Peter Parker," p. 328. 

14. Williams' "Middle Kingdom," Vol. 2, pp. 356 3.; "Chinese 

Repository," Vol. 14, p. 195. 

15. Walter Lowrie: "Memoir of the Rev. Walter M. Lowrie" (Phila- 

delphia, 1854). 



MISSIONARIES AND AMERICAN POLICY IN ASIA 577 

16. S. Wells Williams' Journal, p. 86. 

lY. Henri Cordier: "Relations," Vol. 1, cliaps. 4 and 5. 

18. Theodore Walrond : "Letters and Journals of James, Eighth 

Earl of Elgin." 

19. Lindsay Brine: "The Taeping Rebellion in China," pp. 295-8. 

20. Otis Gary: "A History of Christianity in Japan" (New York, 

1909); W. E. Griffis: "Verbeck of Japan" (New York, 1900). 

21. For. Relations, 1870, p. 461. 

22. Japan Desp., Vol. 61, Jan. 2, 1890, Swift to Secy, of State. 

23. For. Relations, 1868, I, pp. 749, 753, 827 ; 1870, pp. 455, 460, 482. 

24. Stead : "Japan by the Japanese," p. 156. 

25. Henri Cordier: "Relations," Vol. 1, chap. 18. 

26. Holcombe, p. 163, makes a slightly different statement of the 

settlement of the religious question from the statement con- 
tained in the diplomatic dispatches. The writer has followed 
the latter. For references see chap. 24. 

27. L. H. Underwood: "Underwood of Korea" (New York, 1918); 

"The Call of Korea," by H. G. Underwood (New York, 1908). 

28. W. E. Griffis : "A Modern Pioneer in Korea" (biog. of Henry G. 

Appenzeller). 

29. Marshall Corres., pp. 183 &. 

30. Charles Taylor, M. D. : "Five Years in China," pp. 38 if. 

31. Moore's "Digest," Vol. 5, pp. 452 ff. ; see Koo : "Status of Aliens 

in China," chap. 16, for a digest of the policies of the various 
treaty powers, with special reference to Great Britain, France 
and Germany. 

32. Moore's "Digest," Vol. 5, p. 460. 

33. Ibid., p. 458 ; see also China Desp., Vol. 103, July 10, 1897, Denby 

to Secy, of State. 

34. For. Relations, 1875, pp. 333, 399. 

35. For Tientsin massacre and Wensiang note, see For. Rel., 1870, 

pp. 355 ff.; 1871, pp. 97 ff. 

36. Arthur H. Smith: "China in Convulsion," Vol. 1, chaps. 3, 4, 

give an excellent exposition as viewed by a liberal Protestant 
missionary. 



CHAPTER XXX 

AMEKICAN TEADE: 1844-1898 

The broad history of the American commerce with Asia 
is too large a subject to be brought within the scope of this 
study and yet certain phases of it cannot be neglected if one 
would understand the course of American policy. The very 
intimate relation between trade and politics in the first half 
of the century has already been shown. In the next fifty 
years both trade and politics became more complex and it is 
not always so easy to trace the relationship. Trade history 
under the treaties falls naturally into three periods, each 
with marked and peculiar characteristics. These periods 
are: 1844-58, 1859-95 and 1896-1900. The treaties of 1858 
are a clear dividing line after which the trade which had 
hitherto been confined to China, and to five open ports, 
spread out to a steadily increasing number of cities in China, 
and also extended itself to Japan, and then to Korea. The 
close of the Sino-Japanese War is also a dividing line, coin- 
ciding as it does, roughly, with the new industrial and mer- 
cantile development of the United States which followed 
the recovery from the panic of 1893. The end of the century j | 
finds this new development in the full tide of its growth. 
Meanwhile the close of the war in Asia had set in motion a 
new commercial and political activity to which was related 
the McKinley-Hay policies with which our study comes to 
a close. A comprehensive survey of the trade history would 
include an examination of American relations with the 
Pacific Islands, and the Indian Ocean ports, but for our 
purposes we can afford to neglect them because they appear 
to have exercised practically no influence on policies. In 
the last quarter of the century until 1898 the attention of 

578 



AMERICAN TRADE: 1844-1898 579 

Americans, in so far as it extended to Asia at all, was cen- 
tered on Japan and China with occasional reference to 
Korea and the Hawaiian Islands. 

Both American commerce and tonnage increased rapidly 
from 1844 to 1858. But it was also the time during which 
the first generation, the pioneer traders in China, disap- 
peared. American trade was being carried on by the sons 
and relatives, for the most part, of the men who had founded 
it. The significant fact, looking towards the future, was 
that the third generation in these families was not remaining 
in the trade.* It is, probably, no injustice to those who 
came later, to state that the American mercantile com- 
munity in the East reached its point of maximum vigor 
before the outbreak of the American Civil War. Dry-rot 
was already setting in and the domestic development of the 
United States was such that men of ability and character 
equal to that of the pioneers in Asia could now find ampler 
rewards at home in the fields of manufacturing, banking and 
transportation. The East India trade was no longer an El 
Dorado. 

The period of 1859-95 was characterized by the decay, 
withdrawal or failure of all the American mercantile houses 
famous before the treaties of Tientsin, and by the entrance 
of no new merchants who rose to equal eminence. The fail- 
ures of Olyphant and Company in December, 1878, and of 
Russell and Company in June, 1891, eliminated two of the 
most famous of the older American firms, and surrendered 
to British and German competitors a prestige and commer- 
cial leadership in China which Americans have never re- 
gained. No younger firms and no American banks had been 
developing to take over American interests and carry them 
on. The new firms which had appeared since the Civil War 
were, with very few notable exceptions, not well supplied 
with capital, and sometimes inclined to speculations and 

*One may trace this fact in the history of nearly all of the American 
familie-s prominently identified with the East India trade before 1850 — there 
never were more than a score of them. In the second half of the century it 
is rare to find an American merchant in either China or Japan by the name 
of Perkins, Russell, Forbes, Gushing, Olyphant, Talbot. Griswold, Low, Wet- 
more or Wolcott, who was born after 1830. On the other hand these names 
occur with increasing frequency in the domestic commercial life of the nation. 



580 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

methods which brought little credit to American trade. 
This was especially true in China. 

In measuring the influence of trade on political policy it 
must also be borne in mind that the trade was never a large 
proportion of the total American foreign trade.^ From 
1821 to 1897 the ratio of the total value of merchandise im- 
ported into and exported from the United States in the trade 
with all Asia ranged from 5.90 to 6.97 per cent of the total 
American former trade. While it rose in an exceptional 
period of nine months in 1843 to nearly 14 per cent, from 
1850 to 1890 it ranged either slightly above or slightly below 
5 per cent. The exports from the United States were small 
as compared with the imports — from a third to as low as a 
tenth as much. The value of the trade with China dropped 
steadily from 1860 to 1897 from 3 to less than 2 per cent of 
the total American trade, and while the trade with Japan 
was steadily increasing from nothing, it had reached only 
2 per cent of the total American foreign trade in 1897. 
These facts lead to the inevitable conclusion that in the 
four decades following the close of the American Civil War 
the trans-Pacific trade of the United States was of slight im- 
portance to the American people. It was the missionary 
and political interests of America in Asia which kept the 
Far Eastern problem before the American people, to even 
the slight degree in which it held their attention. 

One finds in the relative status of the China and the 
Japan trade another reason why American policy steadily 
inclined towards Japan. While the volume of trade with 
China indicated a fairly steady increase after the close of 
the Civil War, its value showed an actual shrinkage due to. 
the declining value of silver. The increase in volume of; 
trade was not even sufficient to offset the decrease in 
values.* While the trade was valued at $22,472,605 in 
1860, thirty years later it was only $19,206,680. On the 
other hand the trade with Japan, beginning with $193,865 
in 1860, advanced to $26,335,967 in 1890, having surpassed 

*The haekwan tael declined from $1,522 (January 1, 1874) to $1.01 (1893) ; 
$.849 (1894) ; and $.703 (1900). 



AMERICAN TRADE: 1844-1898 



581 



Value in Gold of Merchandise Imported into and Exported from the 
United States, Fiscal Years 1865 to 1904 * 



years 



1889 
1890 
1891 
1892 
1893 
1894 
1895 
1896 
1897 
1898 
1899 
1900 
1901 
1902 
1903 
1904 



CHINESE empire ' 



Exports to 



Dollars 
2,669,449 
3,145,231 
3,578.808 
3,980,014 
5,203,238 
3,116,381 
2,070,832 
2,936,835 . 
1,062,598 
843,121 
1,464,524 
1,390,360 
1,707,872 
3,604,546 
2,651,677 
1,101,383. 
5,447,680 
5,895,983 
4,080,322 
4,626,578 
6,396,500 
7,520,581 
6,246,626 
4,582,585 
5,791,128 
2,946,209 
8,701,008 
5,663,497 
3,900,457 
5,862,426 
3,603,840 
6,921,933 
11,921,433 
9,992,894 
14,493,440 
15,259,167 
10,405,834 
24,722,906 
18,898,163 
12,862,202 



Imports 
from 



Dollars 
5,129,917 
10,131,142 
12,112,440 
11,384,999 
13,207,361 
14,565,527 
20,064,365 
26,752,835 
26,353.110 
18,144,210 
13,473,600 
12,353,943 
11,130,495 
15,887,820 
16,431,344 
21,769,618 
22,317,729 
20,214,341 
20,141.331 
15,616,793 
16,292,169 
18,972,963 
19,076,780 
16,690,589 
17,028,412 
16,260,471 
19,321,850 
20,488,291 
20,636.535 
17,135.028 
20,545,829 
22,023,004 
20,403,862 
20,326.436 
18,619,268 
26,896,926 
18,303,706 
21,055,830 
26,648,846 
29,342,488 



HONGKONG 



Exports to 



Dollars 



1,493,372 

1,286,008 
2,102,224 
3,339,532 
3,229,834 
3,262,709 
3,290,522 
2,877,392 
2,916,854 
3,227,897 
3,777,759 
3,083,849 
4,149,311 
4,056,236 
2,984,042 
3,351,952 
3,686,384 
4,439,153 
4,768,697 
4,894,049 
4,216,602 
4,209,847 
4,253,040 
4,691,201 
6,060,039 
6,265,200 
7,732,525 
8,485,978 
8,009,848 
8,030,109 
8,772,453 
10,412,548 



Imports 
from 



Dollars 



838,649 

449,230 

1,202,816 

493,690 

1,171,189 

2,232,663 

1,653,350 

2,251,089 

2,399,828 

2,424,092 

1,918,894 

1,504,580 

983,815 

1,072,459 

1,436,481 

1,445,774 

1,480,266 

969,745 

563,275 

763,323 

878,078 

892,511 

776,476 

1,419,124 

923,842 

746,517 

2,479,274 

1,256,267 

1,416,412 

1,277,755 

1,359,905 

1,652,038 



Exports to 



Dollars 

41,913 

254,779 

712,024 

769,471 

1,291,936 

571,186 

476,173 

906,213 

1,174,854 

1,046,965 

1,661.933 

1,099,696 

1,252,346 

2,246,827 

2,676,924 

2,552,888 

1,468,976 

2,540,664 

3,376,434 

2,528,529 

3,057,415 

3,135,533 

3,335,592 

4,214,382 

4,619,985 

5,232,643 

4,807,693 

3,290,111 

3,195,494 

3,986,815 

4,634,717 

7,689,685 

13,255,478 

20,385,541 

17,264,688 

29,087,475 

19,000,640 

21,485,883 

20,933,692 

24,955,032 



Imports 
from 



Dollars 

285,176 

1,815,364 

2,618,283 

2,424,153 

3,245,317 

3,052.026 

5,298,153 

6,537,584 

7,903,794 

6,468,460 

7,759,569 

15,470,047 

13,687,061 

7,446,547 

9,845,562 

14,510,834 

14,217,600 

14,439,495 

15,098,890 

11,274,485 

11,767,956 

14,885,573 

17,114,181 

18,621,576 

16,687,992 

21,103,324 

19,309,198 

23,790,202 

27,454,220 

19,426,522 

23,695,957 

25,537,038 

24,009,756 

25,223,610 

26,716,814 

32,748,902 

29,229,543 

37,552,778 

44,143,728 

47,166,576 



a From 1865 to 1872 includes Hongkong. 
*> Prior to 1873 included in "Chinese Empire." 

* Adapted from Monthly Summary of Commerce and Finance, Sept. 1904, 
p. 1211. 



582 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

the China trade.* After the Sino-Japanese War the entire 
trade with Asia was greatly stimulated but Japan retained 
the lead. In 1897 the total trade between the United States 
and China was $32,328,295 while the trade with Japan had 
reached $37,265,234. (See above table.) The more im- 
portant factors in the increase of the Japan over the China 
trade were : the purchase of an increasing proportion of tea 
and silk in Japan for which China had been the sole source 
before 1860; and the beginning of manufacturing in Japan 
which created a market for an increasing amount of Ameri- 
can raw cotton. The trade with Korea was trivial.f An- 
other factor tending to promote the Japanese trade was the 
entrance of Japanese commission houses into the United 
States after the Centennial Exposition of 1876. 

A better understanding of the trade conditions at the 
beginning of the McKinley administration comes from a 
review of the commercial policies of the competing nations 
in the preceding generation. What were the possible meth- 
ods of promoting trade and how far had the Americans 
adopted those methods with success? Broadly speaking 
there were, aside from the simple exchange of commodities, 
the following methods : ownership of merchant fleets ; plac- 
ing of foreign advisers in positions of influence in the ser- 
vice of Asiatic states where their influence would tend to 
divert purchases; securing of concessions for the operation 
of telegraphs, railroads or mines ; and loaning money to the 
various governments. 

* Tbe statistics used for China do not include Flongltong. If the latter trade 
is added, it will be found that the China trade retained first place ; however, 
the ratio of increase was greater for the Japan trade. 

t It Is difficult to appraise the exact share of the Americans in the Korean 
trade which had reached a total of a little more than $9,500,000 gold in 1897. 
A certain amount of American produce was brought into Korea through Japa- 
nese and Chinese sources, and the American firms in Korea dealt almost exclu- 
sively with Japanese or Chinese merchants. The Decennial Reports of the 
Chinese Maritime Customs for the years 1882-91 show the Americans to have 
had but 2 per cent of the import trade at Chemulpo (Jenchuan) one of the 
three Korean ports of entry. The bulk of the Korean trade was divided 
between the English and the Japanese with the latter steadily gaining the 
ascendancy. 



AMERICAN TRADE: 1844-1898 583 

Decline of American Shipping 

The decline of the American merchant marine which 
became so marked after the Civil War was somewhat re- 
tarded in Chinese and Japanese waters by special circum- 
stances. 

The treaties of Tientsin by increasing the number of 
open ports and opening the Yangtze River as far as Hankow 
to foreign ships created a new demand for vessels which 
were more dependable than the native junks. The dis- 
ordered internal conditions of China and Japan made it 
especially convenient not only for the foreigners but also for 
native merchants to entrust their cargoes to insurable vessels 
under foreign flags which were best able to command the 
respect of insurgents and most likely to have their claims 
paid in case of loss by capture. These conditions coincided 
with the improvement of steam navigation. The result was 
the creation immediately of a considerable fleet of relatively 
small steamers under foreign flags which obtained a very 
large share of the rapidly developing trade. The number of 
these vessels was swollen in China by the practice of selling 
to the Chinese lorcha owners the right to use a foreign flag 
over their vessels. This was accomplished by an ingenious 
transaction in which the technical ownership of the lorcha 
was transferred to the foreigner who in turn gave back to 
the Chinese a mortgage for the full value of the vessel which 
carried with it the right to operate the craft. The foreign 
flag was then hoisted as an evidence of foreign ownership 
but the foreigner named in the vessel's papers never ap- 
peared except in case of trouble with either the native or 
foreign authorities when his technical ownership was sufii- 
cient to bring any legal troubles which might arise into the 
extraterritorial courts. These semi-fraudulent transac- 
tions were winked at by the foreign authorities and led to 
great abuses for many years. ^ The lorcha Arrow which gave 
so much trouble to Viceroy Yeh at Canton in 1856 had been 
flying the British flag under such an arrangement. There 
was at least one American merchant in the two decades fol- 



584 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

lowing the treaties of 1858 who specialized in this class of 
business. 

The American mercantile houses had entered the coast- 
ing trade of China under the transshipment provisions of 
the Gushing treaty and as a part of the opium traffic, and 
were well prepared to enter into the new opportunities 
created by the treaties of 1858. Russell and Company or- 
ganized the Shanghai Steam Navigation Company and 
within a few years had no less than sixteen steamers en- 
gaged in the coast-wise and river trade. Four of these had 
been built in the United States and had carried American 
registers. One was built in the United States and sold to 
a Japanese daimio who resold it to the Shanghai company. 
Six were built in Scotland after 1868 and brought to Shang- 
hai under British register. Five had been built at Shang- 
hai.^ They were operated under the American flag under 
consular "sailing-letters," the flag being merely an evidence 
of American ownership but not, of course, of American 
registry. Owing to the scarcity of American seamen and 
masters in the Far East, and still more because Chinese or 
other non- American labor was cheaper it became customary 
to dispense almost or even entirely with American citizens 
in the operation of these vessels, even the master being in 
some cases an Englishman. The practice was at least some- 
what irregular and could not stand very close scrunity ac- 
cording to American maritime law, but it was winked at by 
the Shanghai consulate and was not unknown to the De- 
partment of State. It is the presence of these vessels and 
the lorchas already described which partially accounts for 
the fact that American shipping in Chinese waters appears 
to have retained its place long after the American mercantile 
marine had begun to disappear from other .foreign ports. 

Another factor in keeping the American flag on the 
Pacific was the establishment of the Pacific Mail Steamship 
Company line in 1867.^ By act of Congress (February 16, 
1865) a subsidy which in the course of ten years amounted 
to a little more than $4,500,000 was granted in this line. In 
1872 an additional vessel was authorized with an additional 



AMERICAN TRADE: 1844-1898 585 

subsidy of $500,000 annually, but two years later it was 
discovered that a million dollars had been spent to secure 
this additional assistance from the government and in 1877 
when the original grant expired all subsidy was eliminated. 
This line of steamers was originally intended to run by way 
of Honolulu to Japan and Shanghai, but the company was 
released from the obligation to stop at the Hawaiian Islands 
and was thus able to reduce the distance to be sailed by 
taking the great-circle route. The subsidizing of this line 
of steamers was often referred to in later years when the 
perennial question of ship-subsidies appeared, either as an 
argument to prove the value of them or to show their cor- 
rupting influence. Probably more important than the gov- 
ernment aid was the rapid development of the Chinese immi- 
gration, which was extremely profitable. It is a notable fact 
that the Pacific Mail continued to operate its lines after the 
subsidy was removed, and that in later years another com- 
pany, the Occidental and Oriental, put on four additional 
vessels. It ought also to be mentioned that these latter 
steamers were of British construction and ownership, being 
merely leased to an American company. 

Neither the Japanese nor the Chinese accepted with 
complacency the passing of their coast-wise trade into the 
hands of foreigners. Japan immediately entered upon a pro- 
gram of nautical education and ship-building and as rapidly 
as possible entered both the California and the China trade, 
while China also displayed an unwonted degree of enterprise 
which resulted in the organization, under the patronage of 
Li Hung Chang, of the China Merchants Company, with a 
view to competition with the steamers under foreign flags. 
For the assistance of this new company a form of subsidy 
was devised in which the company was permitted to trans- 
port the government rice from the Yangtze and Shanghai to 
Tientsin at rates in excess of current freight rates. The 
American vessels were unable to meet this competition, ac- 
companied as it was by the undoubted anti-foreign senti- 
ment of Chinese merchants and government alike, and in 
1877 Russell and Company sold its fleet to the China Mer- 



586 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

chants.^ During the Franco-Chinese War the entire China 
Merchants fleet was i;esold to Russell and Company but 
after the war the Chinese forced the return of the fleet by 
declining to continue the rice-freights so long as the steam- 
ers remained in foreign hands. The American flag then 
practically disappeared from the merchant marine in 
Chinese waters. The significant facts are that this fleet had 
never been under American registry and had never complied 
with the American law as to American construction and op- 
eration ; that at the time when the American fleet was sold 
to the Chinese in 1877 a British fleet of nine steamers was 
already in successful operation up the Yangtze and along the 
coast; and that notwithstanding the use of the American 
flag in the trans-Pacific trade, the total volume of American 
trade with China does not appear to have been greatly bene- 
fited by it. The greater part of the freight from China to 
America was carried in foreign vessels — after the opening of 
the Suez Canal by way of the Mediterranean and across the 
Atlantic. While the American fleet was of some unques- 
tioned advantage to the American traders, the causes of the 
relative unimportance of the Far Eastern trade of the 
United States in the last forty years of the century lie much 
deeper than in a declining merchant marine. 

Foreign Advisers in China, Japan and Korea 

The most remarkable instance of the use of foreign 
advisers was in the Foreign Inspectorate of Chinese Mari- 
time Customs. As already shown the Chinese Customs 
came under the direction of Messrs. Wade, Lay and Hart, 
respectively, not so much because British claims were being 
urged, as because the Americans were simply without com- 
petent candidates. It is indeed fortunate for the Maritime 
Customs that Americans did not come into control of it 
for in all probability, had they done so, it would have been 
made the victim of the spoils system of American politics.* 

♦William H. Seward, beset with office-seekers at the beginning of the Lin- 
coln administration, was under the impression that he had the official right 
to dictate appointments to the Chinese Maritime Customs. One of his first 



4 



AMERICAN TRADE: 1844-1898 587 

The first experience of the Chinese Government with 
American assistants was in the employment of Ward and 
Burgevine in the suppression of the Taiping Rebellion. 
Ward rendered an honorable service, but Burgevine left a 
stain upon his country's reputation. The purchase of the 
Lay-Osborne Flotilla in England led to a new interest in 
coal mines, the product of which would be so much in de- 
mand for steam navigation of government vessels. Raphael 
Pumpelly, an American who had just completed similar 
geological surveys for the Japanese Government, was in- 
vited to make a report on Chinese coal resources. This might 
have led to an early development of Chinese mines under 
American supervision had not the Lay-Osborne Flotilla be- 
come such a source of embarrassment to' the Tsung-li 
Yamen. The return of this fleet not only put an end to the 
interest in coal mines but also made the government wary 
of foreign advisers like Mr. Lay.^ 

Following the end of the Taiping Rebellion several Eng- 
lishmen and Frenchmen from Ward's or Gordon's armies 
entered Chinese service, especially in the supervision of 
arsenals. No Americans were similarly employed for there 
were no competent candidates. The next important post 
in the Chinese service for which an American was a possible 
candidate was in connection with the Chinese navy which 
Li Hung Chang had begun to develop about 1880. Com- 
modore Shufeldt thought that he was deprived of the posi- 
tion through the intrigues of other governments. There 
may have been a measure of truth in Shufeldt's suspicions, 
but it seems hardly probable that the man who wrote, even 
in confidence, the famous Sargent letter, could have ren- 
dered a very effective service to either the Chinese or his own 
countrymen. It cannot be denied that in the employment 
of foreign advisers for China the American interests were 
not well represented, but they would appear to have had as 
much representation as they deserved or as was warranted 
by the proportion of American to the total foreign trade of 

official communications to the American representative in China was to ask 
him to replace an American then in the Customs service with one of Seward's 
political friends. 



588 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

China. The failure of Russell and Company in 1891 greatly 
prejudiced the Chinese against Americans. The Chinese 
Government lost heavily in this failure and Li Hung Chang 
is reported to have stated shortly after the failure, which 
came at a time when the immigration question was produc- 
ing the maximum amount of trouble, that he would never 
again employ an American for any purpose. 

Japan turned freely to America for advice and was 
fortunate in securing a large number of Americans of excel- 
lent ability and character.'^ However, the greater number 
of the Americans in Japanese service were employed either 
in the development of the school system or otherwise in 
positions which were only remotely related to trade. Japan 
turned to the United States for assistance in building her 
new navy after the Restoration, and even earlier had pur- 
chased several American-built naval vessels, but in such 
matters the Americans were at an obvious disadvantage 
because the American navy was itself rapidly declining, and 
American ship-yards had already lost their world-wide su- 
premacy. The Japanese orders for naval vessels during the 
American Civil War appear to have been handled in a way 
which could not lead to extended future orders. Japanese 
interests were badly served. However the rapid increase of 
American trade with Japan may be somewhat attributed to 
the influence of American advisers as well as to the influence 
of the returned Japanese students, so many of whom in the 
seventies and eighties were being educated in the United 
States. 

The indifference of the American Government to the 
desires of Korea for American advisers has already been 
noted, and the reason for it indicated. Korea was an im- 
poverished country with little money to spend for any 
purpose and a preponderance of American influence in 
Korea was more embarrassing than profitable. 

Foreign Concessions at the Treaty Ports 

The word concession is used loosely in two different 
senses meaning in the one case the foreign settlement at a 



AMERICAN TRADE: 1844-1898 589 

treaty port, and in the other a business privilege or contract 
granted to foreigners by the government. 

In the foreign settlements estabhshed after the treaties 
of Tientsin in China the Americans came out badly. While 
the American minister was "junketing" through Europe to 
the Orient and back in 1859 and 1860 — the term accurately 
describes the conditions under which John E. Ward assumed 
and discharged the duties of his office — there was no one 
to uphold the principles of the international foreign settle- 
ment as they had been worked out at Shanghai in 1853-4. 
Unopposed, the British reverted to the plan which Hum- 
phrey Marshall had overthrown, and established at Hankow 
and Canton British settlements in which the British Gov- 
ernment leased the land from China and then issued titles 
to applicants in the form of sub-leases. Thus disappeared 
even the safe-guard to Chinese sovereignty which had ap- 
peared in the earliest Shanghai land regulations where the 
title, although registered at the British consulate, was actu- 
ally issued by the taotai. There was no disposition on the 
part of the Chinese to discriminate against the Americans 
and when Tientsin was opened a lease for a settlement 
was actually issued to the American consul, but it was never 
approved by his government. At the new ports the Ameri- 
cans were quite satisfied with their allotments of land, but 
the fact remains that the idea of an international settlement 
had been superseded by that of a series of national settle- 
ments such as the British and French had originally contem- 
plated. The effect of this change was to place the desirable 
water-front or mercantile property at each newly opened 
treaty port under the control of some power other than 
China and to make the Americans tenants of some European 
nation. The result was that when in later years new Ameri- 
can firms appeared in China the most desirable locations 
were all preempted and the Americans had to take what was 
left. Prospective American interests in 1858-61 suffered in 
this respect in China because they were indolently repre- 
sented. In 1862 Burlingame found that both the French 
and the British residents were disposed to assume that the 



590 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

leases of land in the various foreign settlements were equiv- 
alent to cession of territory. In 1862 France withdrew from 
the international settlement at Shanghai. In June, 1863, 
the Chinese Government formally granted permission to the 
Americans to erect residences, business houses and go-downs 
at Hong-kew,^ across Soochow Creek and outside the legal 
limits of the settlement, but a few months later the Ameri- 
cans at Hong-kew, some of whom had established themselves 
there many years before without formal permission, heartily 
agreed to the merging of the new area in the International 
Settlement under new Land Regulations. The French, how- 
ever, stood aloof. 

In the treaty ports in Japan, and later in Korea, different 
conditions prevailed from the outset. The Japanese never 
relinquished control of their ports, and although the foreign- 
ers virtually maintained their own municipal government 
in the open ports no rights discriminating in favor of any 
nation were granted. In Korea the Americans were first on 
the ground, after the Japanese and obtained preferred build- 
ing locations, some of which were subsequently given up 
merely because there was no reason for holding them. 

Telegraphs and Cables 

Americans were the first to project the plan of trans- 
Pacific telegraph communications. The first proposal was 
for a line northward through British Columbia, thence by 
way of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, down the coast of 
Siberia to the mouth of the Amur.'' It was hoped by thus 
utilizing land lines for the greater part of the way to avoid 
the difficulties which were encountered with the first sub- 
marine cables. During the Civil War this project was 
being urged. The necessary rights to cross British and 
Russian territory were secured and Congress voted assist- 
ance. The project collapsed upon the completion and suc- 
cessful operation of the second Atlantic cable. In 1865 
Anson Burlingame secured a verbal agreement from the 
Tsung-li Yamen that China would grant permission to the 



I 



AMERICAN TRADE: 1844-1898 591 

East India Telegraph Company of New York to lay cables 
along the coast of China as far south as Hongkong.^^ The 
line thus projected would be linked up to the Russian tele- 
graph already completed to Kiatka, 800 miles from Peking, 
to the Russo-American line by way of Kamtchatka and 
Alaska, and at Hongkong to a proposed British line from 
India. In order to bring about an amicable adjustment of 
the rival claimants for this important concession it had 
become necessary for the Americans to agree to make the 
company international in character by admitting both Brit- 
ish and French share-holders. But the East India Telegraph 
Company does not appear ever to have passed beyond the 
promotion stage. With the collapse of Ihe Russo-American 
company it also disappeared. Indeed it is difficult to see 
how such an extensive plan could ever have been realized by 
Americans without generous assistance from abroad, al- 
though the Russo-American company, which was almost 
identical with the Western Union Telegraph company, spent 
$3,000,000 before abandoning the northern line. 

A part of the plan thus first promoted by Americans was 
immediately taken up by the Danes, who occupied an espe- 
cially favorable political position because they were friendly 
with both Russia and Great Britain. The Great Northern 
Telegraph Company (Danish) supported by Sir Thomas 
Wade at Peking secured in 1870 the privilege of laying a 
cable along the coast northward from Hongkong to Shanghai 
with the understanding that the cable ends at the various 
ports were to be carried to hulks moored in the ports and not 
to be landed. The entrance of the Danish Company marked 
the disappearance of American interests from the telegraph 
situation in China. However the Americans gave the most 
cordial support to the Great Northern Telegraph Company 
and assisted in its promotion in a multitude of ways. In 
1874, when the military value of the telegraph was revealed 
to the Chinese at the time of the threatened Japanese at- 
tack on Formosa M. M. De Lano, the American consul at 
Foochow, represented the Danish interests and conducted a 
large part of the negotiations by which the Great Northern 



592 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

Telegraph Company secured the rights not only for a cable 
to Formosa but also for certain land lines in Fukien.^^ At 
about the same time the Woosung Railway Company 
granted permission to the Danes to land their line at Woo- 
sung and carry it to the international settlement at Shanghai 
over the property recently purchased for the railway. 

The Chinese, however, viewed the extension of tele- 
graphs with timidity. Not only were there objections from 
the superstitious people and geomancers who urged that the 
wires would disturb the Jung-shui, but the government also 
feared that it would be unable to protect the lines and that 
their injury by either thieves or the superstitious would 
result in the inevitable claim for damages and perhaps for 
further demands by the treaty powers. The Woosung- 
Shanghai line was ordered removed, the cable to Formosa 
was postponed, and the government purchased the land hues 
in Fukien and then destroyed them. Before 1875 the 
Chinese Government had adopted the policy also in opera- 
tion in Japan of excluding foreigners from the ownership 
or control of both telegraphs and railroads. The difference 
between China and Japan at this point was that while the 
Japanese were earnestly seeking to perfect themselves in the 
skill necessary for the successful operation of such utilities, 
sending multitudes of students abroad and employing many 
foreign teachers at home, the Chinese Government was pur- 
suing its customary policy of advancing to meet no problem 
and solving each one as much by denial and evasion as 
possible. 

Military necessity, aided by the enlightened convictions 
of Li Hung Chang and a few other military officials, was 
nevertheless slowly crowding the Chinese Government to 
take action and in 1881, while retaining Chinese ownership 
of the lines, the Tsung-li Yamen gave to the Great Northern 
Telegraph Company the contract for the construction of 
some new land lines in the vicinity of Tientsin and Peking. 
The American Government viewed this advance of Danish 
interests without dissatisfaction, although Secretary of State 
Fish (March 4, 1875) had already expressed disapproval of 



AMERICAN TRADE: 1844-1898 593 

the evident monopolistic character of the Danish intentions. 
But the Americans became alarmed at the advance of the 
Great Northern Telegraph Company when it became known 
that Li Hung Chang had negotiated with the company for a 
monopoly of the cable lines. According to the reported con- 
tract any American company would be excluded for twenty 
years from the right even to land a cable at a Chinese port. 
The American Government protested energetically 
against the ratification of this contract but in vain. Prince 
Kung officially stated that whenever an American company 
might desire to lay a cable between Japan and China an 
arrangement would be made "which shall not disappoint the 
American company in the least degree." ^^ This answer 
seemed at the time to be reasonably satisfactory but in fact 
it was not, for the Great Northern Telegraph Company 
made a secret contract with the Japanese Government which 
secured a monopoly of cables westward from Japan. The 
precise form of Prince Kung's statement leaves one wonder- 
ing whether he knew of the monopoly in Japan or whether 
the wording of the statement had been suggested to him by 
those who did. At any rate the Americans were now com- 
pletely excluded from carrying a trans-Pacific cable to 
China by way of Japan which was the natural route. More 
alertness in Tokio might have prevented the consummation 
of an arrangement so disadvantageous to Americans.* 

The First Railways 

Eveji before the Restoration was accomplished both the 
Japanese and the foreigners became interested in railroads 
in Japan. British, French and American interests were 
competing for privileges. While United States Minister 
Van Valkenburgh was absent from Yedo at the opening of 
Osaka in January, 1868, A. L. C. Portman, temporarily act- 

*When in the nineties the American Government sought to promote the 
laying of a trans-Pacific cable, Japan was more than willing to cooperate in a 
Japanese-American cable, but was prevented by the Danish monopoly from 
granting to Americans the right to land in Japan or Formosa cables which 
would connect either with China or Luzon. The Americans were therefore 
forced to lay the trans-Pacifle cable by way of Guam with extensions to Japan 
and China. 



594 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

ing as charge at Yedo, apparently without any instructions 
either from his superior or from Washington, and also with- 
out any definite financial support, secured from the Yedo 
government (January 16, 1868) a concession for a railroad 
from Yokohama to Tokio to be built and owned by Ameri- 
cans. The contract provided that the government would 
have the right to purchase the road at any time at fifty per 
cent above its cost. The new government, however, refused 
to ratify the contract, and immediately adopted the policy 
of keeping all railroads as well as telegraph lines exclusively 
in Japanese ownership. Shortly afterwards H. N. Lay, of 
Lay-Osborne Flotilla fame, appeared in Japan as the agent 
of British firms which desired to build railroads. An agree- 
ment was reached as a result of which Mr. Lay proceeded to 
London and advertised (April 23, 1870) a loan of £100,000 
to be made to Japan for the construction of a railroad. Lay 
stated that the receipts of the road as well as the customs of 
all the treaty ports would be pledged for payment. The 
Japanese repudiated this statement of Mr. Lay who was 
again betraying his inclination to misinterpret and exceed 
his instructions just as he had done in the purchase of the 
flotilla for China eight years before. The terms of the loan 
were changed, but British capital was secured and British 
engineers were engaged. The line from Yokohama to Tokio 
was opened in the summer of 1872, and soon construction, 
was begun on a line from Osaka to Kioto. These two seg-| 
ments became part of a main trunk line from Tokio to Kobe 
which was rapidly pushed to completion. 

The first proposal for a railway in China came from Eng- 
lish and American merchants.^ ^ In 1863 the exigencies of 
the closing struggles with the Taipings were believed to 
afford a sufficient occasion for demonstrating to the Chinese 
the utility of steam transportation. A petition for permis- 
sion to build a line from Shanghai to Soochow signed byi 
twenty-seven foreign firms, mostly British, was presented tof I 
Li Hung Chang, who was then in general charge of the mih- 
tary operations, in the capacity of Imperial Commissioner 
and Governor of Kiangsu. Li Hung Chang with the embar- 



AMERICAN TRADE: 1844-1898 595 

rassments of the Lay-Osborne Flotilla and the defection of 
Burgevine fresh in his mind, replied that railways could be a 
benefit to China only if they were exclusively in the hands 
of the Chinese, and he declined even to present the petition 
to Peking. A few months later Sir MacDonald Stephenson 
came to China, at the suggestion of British merchants, and 
made a somewhat superficial survey of possible railway 
routes. 

The next effort to introduce railway building into the 
empire was stimulated by the construction of the Yoko- 
hama-Tokio line. At the port of Shanghai there was a 
transportation problem somewhat like that at Tokio. The 
foreign shipping found it convenient to anchor in the Woo- 
sung River a dozen miles below the foreign settlement. A 
railroad from the anchorage to the city would serve a pur- 
pose similar to the Yokohama-Tokio line. Oliver B. Brad- 
ford, American vice consul at Shanghai, with the approval of 
George F. Seward, the consul general, and of- United States 
Minister Low at Peking, as well as with the knowledge of the 
Department of State, undertook to promote the construc- 
tion of a narrow gauge railroad from the anchorage at Woo- 
sung to Shanghai.^* 

Three obstacles appeared. At the request of the Chinese 
Government which had become alarmed at the prospective 
demands of foreigners for railroad privileges in the ap- 
proaching revision of the treaties, Anson Burlingame had 
secured from the United States in the treaty of 1868 the 
stipulation (Article 8) that the United States "do hereby 
freely disclaim and disavow any intention or right to inter- 
vene in the domestic administration of China in regard to 
the construction of railroads, telegraphs or other material 
improvements." The second obstacle was that the Chinese 
had assumed the policy of reserving all railroad rights to 
themselves. Third, Bradford had no adequate financial 
backing. He was purely a promoter. The first obstacle was 
ignored, the second was met by fraud and the third, after 
vain attempts to interest American capital which at that 
time was not even equal to financing railways in America, 



596 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

was overcome by admitting a preponderating British inter- 
est into the company. 

The "Woosung Road Company" was formed by Brad- 
ford to purchase land for a "horse-road." Shortly after- 
wards the interests of this company were transferred to the 
"Woosung Tramway Company" (in the Chinese text of the 
transfer: the "Woosung Carriage-Road Company") and 
land was purchased for the ostensible purpose of a carriage 
road. When title to the land had been secured, grading was 
begun and rails were laid with the knowledge, of course, yet 
without the approval of the local Chinese officials. The 
first official information received by the Chinese Govern- 
ment as to the true nature of the undertaking was a request 
to the customs to admit duty-free the locomotive and cars 
which had arrived from England. Notwithstanding the pro- 
tests of the government as well as of the local Chinese land 
holders the road was partially opened for traffic June 30, 
1876, and continued in operation for a few weeks until at the 
time of the Chefoo agreement the government secured from 
Sir Thomas Wade a stipulation that China should have the 
privilege of buying the line from the company which was 
now a British concern. By order of Wade the operation of 
trains was temporarily discontinued and when the Chinese i 
had completed the purchase of the line, the rails were torn ' 
up and the entire equipment shipped to Formosa. The 
immediate cause of the failure of the enterprise was the 
killing of a Chinese by a train, and the opposition of the 
local people, but back of this lay the belief of the Chinese 
officials that if they were to permit such a high-handed j 
scheme to succeed a precedent would be established which 
would upset entirely the Chinese poHcy of controlling its 
own railway development.* 

*"I have been to much trouble to ascertain from the Chinese officials their 
reasons, etc., for their action in the premises and I submit the following, as 
near their language as possible. They declare that '. . . the removal of the 
Woosung Railway is being carried out solely in consequence of the political 
necessity of the act. That to allow it to remain where it is would utterly 
stultify the action of the authorities and afford the strongest encouragement 
to similar invasions of Chinese territory and of her independence as a nation.' 
By a general consensus of opinion, both of the Chinese officials and Chinese 
merchants, the net result of the scheme carried out by the Woosung Road Com- 
pany is to brand all railway schemes (and even ordinary road -making pro- 



AMERICAN TRADE: 1844-1898 597 

The Woosung Railway episode has been given at some 
length because it serves to throw light on the contemporary- 
conditions of American trade. American capital was not 
seeking an entrance into either Japan or China in this 
period, while British capital was eager for opportuities. 
The Americans who stand forth in the trade history of this 
period were adventurers and promoters lacking both the 
character and the business connections which would have 
been necessary to establish and carry through large under- 
takings. They were utterly unlike the earlier Americans 
who by just, generous and conciliatory business methods 
won the confidence of Chinese merchants in the old pre- 
treaty days at Canton. Now, while British and Continental 
merchants and capitalists were appearing in China with 
ample resources and respectable personnel, prepared to 
make investments, loan money, or otherwise meet the needs 
of the situation, the American merchants were steadily 
losing ground and the American consulates reeked with 
malodorous scandals. Americans were not prepared to do 
business in the East on a large scale. Both citizens and capi- 
tal could find more satisfactory returns at home within the 
borders of the United States. 

Railway Construction in China after 1885 

Railway construction in China again became a mooted 
question in 1885, at the close of the Franco-Chinese War. 
In 1886 there were gathered at Tientsin and Peking the 
largest number of "concession-hunters" yet seen in China. 
A German syndicate had sent representatives who were 
reported to be seeking to loan to China £35,000,000 for rail- 

posals) with suspicion and dislike in the eyes of the Chinese officials and the 
government itself, and to tend to retard for severs^! years their introduction 
into the empire. This feeling has no connection with the merits of such enter- 
prises, which the Chinese do to a considerable extent both understand and 
appreciate, but it is due wholly and solely to the deceit and fraud practiced 
at the commencement by the original promoters of the scheme." (Consul 
General G. Wiley Wells to Department of State, November 20, 1877.'=) 

The excerpt is from a report on the moral delinquencies of the American 
consulate at Shanghai which resulted in an exhaustive investigation by the 
Department of State, a Committee of the House of Representatives, and then 
the proposed impeachment of George F. Seward. One of the indictments 
against Bradford was his connection with the railroad. Both Bradford and 
Seward were removed from office. 



598 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

way construction. A French syndicate, encouraged by the 
clause in the recent French treaty of 1885 which stipulated 
that if China decided to build railways the French Govern- 
ment would give to China every facility to procure in France 
the personnel she might need, was established at Tientsin in 
a $100,000 mansion with a liberal expense account for enter- 
taining. Meanwhile there appeared the Kaiping Railway 
Company, a Chinese concern with Wu Ting Fang as direc- 
tor, Li Hung Chang as patron, and with construction already 
started on a line in the direction of the Kaiping coal mines. 
This company had close British affiliations. It was espe- 
cially favored by the Chinese who were now clearly deter- 
mined to retain control not merely of the ownership but of 
the construction of whatever railways might be built. 

The American Government was represented by Charles 
Denby of Indiana who, before coming to China in 1885 as 
minister, had been prominently identified with railroad 
building in the United States. Denby was keenly and intel- 
ligently interested in the Chinese transportation problem 
which was in some respects so similar to that which the 
American people had been solving for the last quarter cen- 
tury. He was also convinced that the time had come when 
American interests in China ought to be pushed aggressively. 
General James H. Wilson, ^"^ an American engineer, arrived 
about the same time and no opportunity was lost to present 
to the Chinese the superiorities of American methods of rail- 
way construction and operation. A model of American rail- 
way track and a small train operated by clock-work was even 
set up within the palace grounds for the amusement of the 
boy Emperor and the Court. The French syndicate, how- 
ever, was quick to offset this advantage by the gift of even 
more elaborate equipment of French design. Denby 's ^dvice 
was freely drawn upon, especially after he expressed his 
sympathy with the Chinese in their desire to retain control 
of their railways.* 

American interests, operating through Russell and Com- 

*The charter for the Kaiping Railway Company, which in 1887 became the 
China Railway Company, was based upon a model charter for a stock companj 
supplied by Denby. 



AMERICAN TRADE: 1844-1898 599 

pany, bid for the construction of a line from Tientsin to 
Taku which would actually become a link in the projected 
Tientsin-Kaiping road, but American capitalists were un- 
willing to advance a loan for the work and the contract went 
to the Kaiping Company. At about the same time the 
Americans made a bid for the construction of 80 miles of 
road in Formosa, but were under-bid by a British company 
which secured the contract. 

The year 1887 was one of great activity among the 
foreign investors. A Chinese- American bank was projected. 
This was supported by the so-called Philadelphia Syndicate 
and received the approval of Li Hung Chang. It was pro- 
posed to loan the government 80,000,000 taels to finance 
railway construction, and to organize a mint. The same 
interests also secured extensive concessions including the 
right to install telephone systems. The Yamen refused to 
ratify the agreement, and although efforts were made subse- 
quently to revive the scheme nothing ever came of it. It is 
quite probable that it had been from the outset more a 
promoters' than an investors' proposition. 

The French syndicate likewise failed to secure the desired 
concessions and was diverted to the construction of fortifica- 
tions at Port Arthur. A considerable amount of American 
equipment was used in the Tientsin-Kaiping line which was 
opened in 1888, but it could not be claimed that Americans 
had accomplished much towards regaining the commercial 
position in China which they had occupied in 1860. The 
causes of their failure had been lack of capital and inade- 
quate authoritative representation in China able to conclude 
business agreements. 

The close of the Sino-Japanese War marked the begin- 
ning of an entirely new phase of China's financial relations 
with the West. Before 1894 the Chinese Government had 
been proceeding on the principle of borrowing as little as pos- 
sible and retaining complete control of both mines and rail- 
roads. The policy had been successful in a purely negative 
way. China became debtor to foreigners to only a slight 
extent, but meanwhile Chinese capital had not been forth- 



600 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

coming to build railways. The Chinese investors distrusted 
Chinese stock companies and they had no relish for lending 
money to their government. As a matter of fact current 
rates of interest among the Chinese were very much higher 
than the rates at which money could be borrowed from 
abroad; it was only a question of time in 1894 when China 
would be forced into the foreign markets. The expenses of 
the war with Japan rather than the need for railways cre- 
ated the immediate necessity. At the close of the war China 
was indebted to foreign money lenders to the extent of 
£7,000,000 secured by the customs. It then became neces- 
sary to borrow 200,000,000 taels to pay the indemnity to 
Japan. American bankers offered to make all or part of this 
loan but their competitors offered more favorable terms. 
About £16,000,000 were supplied by Russian and French 
banks with interest at 4 per cent under a guaranty by the 
Russian Government, and an equal amount by a British- 
German syndicate at 5 per cent, secured by customs receipts. 
China now entered upon the most discouraging and dis- 
astrous phase of her foreign relations. Having been more 
or less estranged from the United States by both the immi- 
gration and the Korean matters, and having been practically 
deserted by Great Britain in the war with Japan, the 
Chinese Government, led by Li Hung Chang, turned to 
Russia. Possibly it would be more accurate to say that Li 
Hung Chang had decided to enter European politics aggres- 
sively where Japan had been operating so successfully for a 
decade. But China, unlike Japan, was unprepared to take 
such a step. The Empire now had to gather the bitter har- 
vest of a half-century of reactionary, foreign-hating policy 
which had been characterized by arrogance and stupidity. 
Even Li Hung Chang, China's most progressive and ablest 
leader, had never set his foot on foreign soil until he went 
to Shimoneseki to sign the fateful treaty with Japan. While 
Japan had been earnestly studying the international situa- 
tion and faithfully training her leaders to cope with it, China 
had recalled the few students she had sent abroad and 
sought to turn back the hands of the clock. Now in her hour 



AMERICAN TRADE: 1844-1898 601 

of greatest need China was helpless ; rich in resources and in 
intellectual ability but impoverished by a corrupt and unen- 
lightened government. By a tactful and conciliatory policy 
at Peking, Russia had long been preparing for this hour of 
opportunity. Suffice it to say, for the moment, that while 
it cannot be shown that in the closing years of the century 
American trade or American investors had actually suffered 
a net loss because of the disastrous treaties and agreements 
which China made voluntarily or otherwise with Russia, 
France and England, yet the presence of large European 
fleets and the steady pressure of the diplomatic representa- 
tives at Peking exercised a disturbing influence on the letting 
of such contracts for railway construction as the Americans 
desired. The Americans, unsupported by guarantees of 
their government, were at a disadvantage in bidding against 
Europeans who had become political agents as well as 
money-lenders. 

Three or four American companies, one from Japan, but 
the others hitherto unknown in China, appeared in 1896 
seeking the opportunity to build railways. A preliminary 
agreement was made to give the contract for a line from 
Hankow to Peking to one of two competing American firms 
but Belgians, backed by French and Russian capital, were 
prepared to give more favorable terms to China. The 
Chinese were disposed to favor the Americans and at the last 
minute would have given them the contract, so it is believed, 
but the representatives of the American banks were without 
authority to act quickly, if at all, and the diplomatic pres- 
sure at Peking, notwithstanding the opposition of the Brit- 
ish, turned the contract over to the Belgian company.* The 
struggle for contracts had assumed a political character but 
the Americans retained a clear advantage over their com- 
petitors because the Chinese recognized that the United 
States had no territorial designs. In April, 1898, after a 

*It has been frequently stated that this contract was lost to the Americana 
because the Department of State would not support the claims of the Ameri- 
can company. This would appear to be a mistaken assumption. U. S. Minister 
Denby wrote, Octoher 20, 1897 : "The night before the Belgian contract for 
the Hankow-Paoting-fu line was let, it was offered to an American but he ha4 
no power to accept it." 



602 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

great deal of manoeuvering the Chinese minister in Wash- 
ington signed a contract for an American syndicate to build 
the Canton-Hankow line. At about the same time China 
expressed a willingness to give to Americans the right to 
build a line northward from Peking to Kalgan. With both 
this and the Canton-Hankow line went valuable mining 
privileges. When a contract was signed by which American 
capital would have been used to finance the Tientsin- 
Chinkiang line, the Germans protested, but American capi- 
tal could have been admitted to a share (1898) in this line 
which was actually built by the British and Germans 
jointly, had the Americans been prepared to handle the 
necessary loan. 

The subsequent history of the Canton-Hankow line does 
not come within the nineteenth century.^^ It is, however, 
significant for our study that the Americans delayed the 
beginning of operations and then allowed the control to pass 
contrary to the terms of the contract into Belgian hands 
from which it was later purchased and then resold to China. 
The death of Calvin Brice, the head of the syndicate formed 
to carry through the Canton-Hankow contract, was disas- 
trous to the enterprise. Two conclusions of importance 
stand out: American capitalists, not yet seriously inter- 
ested in investments in China, had actually secured more 
contracts than they were prepared to execute ; and the loss of 
American prestige and influence and the lack of experience, 
so manifest in the business relations of the last quarter 
century, had now become a serious handicap to effective 
competition with other foreign nations. 

Out of an estimated total of nearly 7500 miles of railway 
concessions granted before December 1, 1898 the Americans 
had actually accepted or secured only 300 miles. They had 
lost several times as much through inability to provide 
capital on acceptable terms. 



AMERICAN TRADE: 1844-1898 603 

Spheres of Influence 

Concurrently with the struggle for contracts and con- 
cessions which followed the Sino-Japanese War, the inter- 
ference of the treaty powers in the affairs of China was be- 
coming so marked as to arouse Americans to the impending, 
if not present, danger. Notwithstanding the fact that in this 
period American capital had secured for the immediate 
present more than it could digest, it was felt that the future 
was very bright for the Americans if only the field of free 
competition were to remain open. In this respect the 
Americans of 1898 were like the China merchants in the 
fifties. The tide, they believed, was beginning to turn. 
The one unsecured essential for successful trade with China 
was the assurance of a field of free competition. Now the 
field was being threatened by a series of treaties and agree- 
ments between China and the other primary treaty powers 
that looked towards the closing of doors which had swung 
open to Americans on terms equal with those of their com- 
petitors for a hundred years. For Americans it was a day 
of uncertainty similar to that which preceded the treaties of 
Wanghia and of Tientsin. More accurately, perhaps, the 
Americans were face to face with the problem which Hum- 
phrey Marshall had envisaged in 1853 when he believed that 
foreign intervention in the Taiping Rebellion would result 
in the partition of China. 

While it is not necessary for the purpose of this study to 
concern ourselves with the mass of details which attended 
the delimitation of spheres of influence and the execution 
of "non-alienation" agreements in China, it is important, as 
we approach the annexation of the Philippines, to have 
clearly in mind the extent to which the Chinese Empire in 
the summer of 1898 had actually been withdrawn from the 
field of free commercial competition.^^ France had secured 
from China the promise that French citizens would be pre- 
ferred above those of all other nationalities in the exploita- 
tion of all mines in the three southern provinces of Yunan, 
Kwangsi and Kwangtung; that all railways having Pakhoi 



604 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

as a starting-point would be constructed by either French or 
Franco-Chinese companies; and that no part of the three 
provinces would be alienated from China or leased to any 
other power. France also obtained a lease for the Bay of 
Kwangchow-wan, the best harbor south of Hongkong. 
Russia had secured the right to preference in the construc- 
tion of all railroads north and northeast of Peking, as well as 
the recognition of all Mongolia and Manchuria as a Russian 
sphere of influence, and had leased Port Arthur, which com- 
manded the naval approach to Peking and North China. 
The Russian agreements carried administrative and military 
privileges which involved the actual, though not theoretical, 
transfer of sovereignty. Germany had secured the right to 
preference for capital or material needed for any purpose in 
Shantung, and had leased Kiaochow, the best naval base 
south of Port Arthur. Great Britain had secured a non- 
alienation agreement for the Yangtze Valley and the prom- 
ise that so long as the British trade preponderated in the 
Empire a British subject should remain the head of the cus- 
toms service. Finally Japan had secured a non-alienation 
agreement for the province of Fukien which carried with it 
the exclusion of leases to any other power. 

These agreements had been accompanied by the signing 
of railway and mining contracts which had been secured by 
intimidation and had been attended by a display of naval 
forces in Chinese waters which revealed utter contempt for 
the sovereignty of the Empire. Clearly China was in danger 
and partition among the powers along the lines of the 
spheres of influence was being freely discussed. Were the 
dismemberment of the Empire to be accomplished, and the 
various regions thus marked out to fall to the exclusive con- 
trol of the powers now claiming them, China would become 
a group of colonies from which the American merchant 
could be excluded at the will of the respective powers just 
at the time when, after long years of waiting, he seemed to 
be on the point of realizing his dreams. In fact he was 
already practically excluded, by agreements actually exe- 
cuted before the summer of 1898, from the mining and rail- 



AMERICAN TRADE: 1844-1898 >• 605 

way rights in almost every valuable field. If it had been the 
sincere intention of the powers to permit free competition 
in their respective spheres there was obviously no reason 
whatever for the existing agreements. 

BIBLIOGKAPHICAL I^OTES 

1. Several studies of American trade with Asia were made by the 

Bureau of Statistics of the U. S. Treasury Dept. after 1898. 
The more useful of these are: "Commercial Japan in 1899"; 
Monthly Summary of Commerce and Finance j July, 1899 ; 
' "Commercial China in 1900" ; ihid., June, 1901 ; "Commercial 
Korea in 1904" ; %bid., Jan., 1904. See also Monthly Summary 
of Trade and Finance, Apr., 1898, pp. 1632-3, 1638-9; ihid., 
Sept., 1904, p. 1211 ; Jan., 1904, p. 2330. See, "China and the 
Far East," George H. Blakeslee, editor, chaps. 2, 3, 5 and 6. 

2. The use, and misuse, of the American flag in China may best 

be studied in the so-called Seward-Bradford investigation, H. 
Kept. 134:45-3, and H. Misc. Doc. 31:45-2 (Part II). 

3. H. Misc. Doc. 31-45-2 (Part II), pp. 228-31. 

4. Royal Meeker; "History of Shipping Subsidies" (New York, 

1905); Walter T. Dinsmore: "Shipping Subsidies" (Boston 
and New York, 1907) ; David A. Wells : "Our Merchant Ma- 
rine" (New York, 1882); H. Rept. 1210:51-1. Meeker has a 
full bibliography. H. Rept. 1210, pp. 136 if., gives a complete 
review of the trans-Pacific American shipping. 

5. Foreign Relations, 1877, p. 88. 

6. Raphael Pumpelly : "Across America and Asia" (New Yorkj 

1870), chaps. 15-22. This book is also very valuable for the 
light it throws on the political conditions in the East in 1863. 

7. Inazo Nitobe: "Intercourse between United States and Japan," 

pp. 116 ff. ; Robert E. Lewis: "The Educational Conquest of 
the Far East," especially tables, appendix, pp. 223-4. 

8. H. Misc. Doc. 31:45-2 (Part II), p. 561; Historic Shanghai by 

Montalto de Jesus. 

9. Papers Relating to the Intercontinental Telegraph (Govt. Print- 

ing Off., 1864) ; George Kennan : "Tent Life in Siberia." 

10. For. Relations, 1867, Part I, pp. 452, 456, 471 ft., 484; 1866, 

Part I, p. 475 ; 1874, pp. 246, 323, 335 ; 1875, pp. 260 ff. 

11. H. Misc. Doc. 31 :45-2 (Part II) gives the DeLano correspondence 

very fully. 

12. For. Relations, 1881, pp. 224, 275, 280; 1882, p. 115. 

13. Percy Horace Kent: "Railway Enterprise in China" (London, 

1907). This is a good general survey, but for the details of 
American projects it should be supplemented by American 
sources. 

14. H. Misc. Doc. 31 :45-2 (Part II) gives the documentary history 

of the Woosung Railway in great detail. 

15. Ihid., p. 139. 



606 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

16. James H. Wilson: "China: Travels in the Middle Kingdom," 

first edition, 1887, was the first book to be published in the 
United States describing the opportunities for railroad de- 
velopment in China. The third edition (1901) includes the 
author's account of the Boxer uprising; General Wilson was 
second in command of the American forces in China in 1900. 

17. William Barclay Parsons: "An American Engineer in China" 

(New York, 1900). Mr. Parsons was the engineer for the 
Brice Syndicate for the survey of the Canton-Hankow line 
in 1899. 

18. John Y. A. MacMurray: "Treaties and Agreements with and 

Concerning China, 1894-1919," 2 vols. (New York, 1921). The 
various compacts by which China signed away so many of her 
sovereign liberties are given in the first volume of this in- 
valuable collection. 



CHAPTER XXXI 

HAWAII AND THE PHILIPPINES 

In 1898, at the end of one hundred and fourteen years 
of relations with the Pacific and Asia, the poHtical aspects 
of the Far Eastern question were for the first time presented 
for the serious consideration of the American people in 
definite proposals for the annexation of the Hawaiian 
Islands and the cession of the Philippines. 

There had been brief, fragmentary and partisan discus- 
sions in Congress in 1843 when the Cushing Mission was 
authorized, in 1852 when the Perry Expedition was on its 
way eastward, and for the remainder of the sixth decade of 
the century Congress had kept a sharp eye on the condition 
of affairs as is indicated by the publication during that 
period of the entire diplomatic correspondence with China — 
more than twenty-five hundred pages of documents. Indeed 
the first years of the Buchanan administration occupied, in 
relation to Far Eastern affairs, a somewhat similar position 
to the first years of the McKinley administration. In each 
case the nation, having recovered from a period of financial 
depression and panic, found itself with a surplus of produce 
for which a foreign market seemed desirable and necessary.^ 
In both instances the new mercantile energy of the Ameri- 
can people was contemporaneous with disorganization and 
uncertainty in the Far East to which was joined the fear 
that other nations might seize the opportunity to obtain 
preferred positions and perhaps to close the doors.* In both 
cases Great Britain found in the United States a sufficient 
encouragement to justify approaches to the American Gov- 
ernment with a view to the achievement of a cordial under- 

*One does not fail to note the striking similarities of the situations in 
1859 and 1897 with that at the close of the World War in 1918. 

607 



608 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

standing if not an alliance for the settlement of the Far 
Eastern question.- Both Buchanan and Hay, who became 
Secretary of State in September, 1898, were promoted to 
positions of great influence in American foreign policy from 
periods of acceptable diplomatic service at the Court of St. 
James following crises in Anglo-American relations which 
had brought the American people to the brink of war with 
England. But in 1857 President Buchanan had been so sure 
of the general indifference of the American people that he 
had not even presented the Far Eastern question to them for 
consideration, whereas forty years later McKinley had 
neither the disposition nor the power to keep it from them. 
The same identical questions which had been decided by 
Marcy, Buchanan and Cass in the later fifties, reappeared 
in the late nineties. Indeed these questions, though often 
decided, had never been disposed of. Seward had faced 
them; so had Fish, Frelinghuysen, Blaine, Bayard and 
Gresham. They were : Should the United States establish 
protectorates or acquire territory in the Pacific and the Far 
East? To what extent should the United States take action 
to assert and to maintain the open door in China and to 
sustain its sovereignty and integrity? What were the limits 
to the degree of cooperation which should be established be- 
tween the United States and Great Britain in the pursuit of 
a common object and policy? The broad outlines of the 
American problem in Asia had not changed in forty years; 
no, not in more than half a century. The task of Caleb 
Gushing in 1844 had been to obtain for Americans a non- 
territorial equivalent for Hongkong. He had only partially 
succeeded. The task for American statesmen in the last 
three years of the century was to obtain for Americans a 
real equivalent, territorial or otherwise, not merely for 
Hongkong but now also for Kwangchow-wan, Foochow, 
Tsingtao, Wei-hai-wei and Port Arthur, spheres of influence, 
and the non-alienation agreements of five powers. The rea- 
son why the task had gone so long unfinished was merely 
that the American people had not cared enough about the 
markets of Asia to finish it. But in March, 1897, the month 



HAWAII AND THE PHILIPPINES 609 

of McKinley's inauguration, American steel rails began to 
sell in the European markets at $18 a ton, and this was 
assumed to indicate that at length the American people had 
reached the point in their industrial development where 
they could no longer safely neglect the markets of the 
world. ^ It was believed by McKinley, by Mark Hanna, 
perhaps by John Hay, and by some, though not all capi- 
talists and "captains of industry," that the American people 
were now ready to resume the task for wich the policy of 
Daniel Webster and Caleb Gushing had proved to be so 
inadequate. 

The Annexation of Hawaii 

The annexation of the Hawaiian Islands was the hors 
d'oeuvre. The acquisition of these islands, however, while 
indubitably a piece of Far Eastern policy, was equally a 
measure of coast defense, as is clearly revealed in the fifty- 
five years' history of the question.* 

The American interest in Hawaii from 1842 onward 
rose and fell with the corresponding interest in the Far 
East. Tyler and Webster were of the opinion (December 
30, 1842) that the United States would make a "decided 
remonstrance" if any other power were to take possession 
of the islands or subvert the native government. A few 
months later when Lord George Paulet seized the islands"^ 
foFGreat Britain, Gommod^ore Kearny, returning from his 
sTiucessTiire'fforts to secure for the United States most- 
favored-nation treatment in China, entered a vigorous pro- 
test. Acting Secretary of State Legare wrote to Edwarcl' 
"Everett in London that the American Government might 
feel justified in "interfering by force," and the action of 
Paulet was disavowed. Otherwise it seems very probable 
that the Hawaiian question would have taken on something 
of the "fifty-four-forty-or-fight" spirit. At that time the 
American interest in the islands arose out of their value to 
the Pacific and trans-Pacific trade, particularly to the 
American whalers in the North Pacific which found at 
Honolulu a convenient place to refit. When the French 



610 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

took possession of Honolulu in 1849, though without haul- 
ing down the Hawaiian flag, the American Government an- 
nounced that it could not view with indifference the passing 
of the islands under the control of any other power. Two 
years later the king placed in the hands of the American 
representative an unregistered deed of cession of his do- 
mains, and while the deed was never executed, Marcy 
stated (December, 1853) while Perry was negotiating with 
Japan, that it seemed "inevitable" that the islands would 
come under the control of the United States. Less than 
four months later he authorized the American representa- 
tive to sign a treaty of annexation.* The treaty was not 
ratified by the United States because of the excessive annui- 
ties stipulated for the native rulers and because it provided 
that the islands should be admitted into the Union as a 
state. 

In 1863 the rank of the American representative was 
raised to that of Minister Resident. About the time of the 
purchase of Alaska and the acquisition of the Midway 
Island in 1867 a new reciprocity treaty was negotiated but 
it was never ratified, just as a similar reciprocity treaty of 
1855 had failed. Seward considered annexation preferable 
to reciprocity if the two were in conflict. 

The settlement of the Pacific Coast, the increase of 
trans-Pacific commerce, and the improvement of steam 
navigation now brought the Hawaiian Islands within the 
purview of coast defense. The annexation question was 
revived in 1871 and Secretary of State Fish recognized the 
value of Honolulu as a "resting spot in mid-ocean between 
the Pacific Coast and the vast domains of Asia which are 
now opening to commerce and Christian civilization." 

In 1875 a convention of commercial reciprocity con- 
taining a non-alienation agreement very similar in import 
to those negotiated in China in 1898-9 was effected. The 
United States was given preferred treatment not open to 
other nations under the most-favored-nation clause. In 

♦This authorization by Marcy was sent to Honolulu immediately after the 
receipt of Perry's first dispatches in which he unfolded his plan for the exten- 
sion and protection of American trade in the Pacific and the East. 



HAWAII AND THE PHILIPPINES 611 

1881 Blaine, while expressing the desire of the United 
States that the "real and substantial independence" of the 
islands be maintained, reasserted their strategic importance 
and stated that occupation by a foreign power in case of 
international difficulties would be a "positive threat" which 
could not be "lightly risked" by the United States. New 
factors in the situation had arisen. The Chinese immi- 
grants, brought in to work on the sugar plantations, had 
increased to a point where they threatened the "substitution 
of Mongolian supremacy for native control," while the 
sugar industry under the reciprocity convention of 1875 had 
greatly increased the value of the islands and the wealth 
of the Americans. "The Hawaiian Islands," stated Blaine, 
"cannot be joined to the Asiatic system. If they drift from 
their independent station it must be toward assimilation 
and identification with the American system to which they 
belong by the operation of natural laws and must belong by 
the operation of political necessity." 

An extension of the reciprocity treaty was negotiated 
in 1884 and when it reached the Senate, so important now 
appeared the strategic value of the islands, that an amend- 
ment to the treaty was added by which Pearl Harbor^ near 
Honolulu, was leased to the United States as a naval base. 
About the time this treaty was being ratified (1887) the 
United States declined to enter into a convention with 
Great Britain and France jointly to guarantee the neu- 
trality of the islands. 

Candor must compel one to admit that the American 
policy in the Hawaiian Islands was showing marked paral- 
lels to the existing and later policies of China and Japan in 
Korea: economic penetration under the treaties of 1875 
and 1887, insistence on no disturbance of the trade, and 
demands for preferred commercial and political treatment. 

Passing over many details of the domestic political de- 
velopment in Honolulu we come to the peaceful revolution 
of 1893 which was followed by the abdication of the re- 
actionary Queen Liliuokalani, the establishment of a pro- 
visional government with Sanford B. Dole as President, and 



612 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

the negotiation, concurrently, of an annexation treaty which 
was signed February 14, and presented to the Senate in 
the closing days of the Harrison administration. The 
President characterized the Hawaiian monarchy as "effete," 
and the native government as "weak and inadequate." The 
choice seemed to him to be between making a formal pro- 
tectorate, which had informally existed for half a century 
and had come to be tacitly recognized by all powers, or 
annexation. He urged the latter. 

President Cleveland, scandalized at what appeared to 
him to have been the intervention of American citizens, if 
not of American officials, in the coup d'etat of January, 
1893, withdrew the treaty from the Senate and started an 
investigation. The important difference between the va- 
rious coup d'etats in Korea by which the Tai-wen-Kun, the 
Chinese and Japanese successively sought to obtain control 
of the government was that at Honolulu the efforts of the 
Americans who were determined upon annexation were 
unstained by assassinations and such barbarities as the 
murder ana burning of a queen — a very important differ- 
ence. The Cleveland investigation only served to make 
more certain that the Hawaiians were incapable of main- 
taining unaided an enlightened, just and stable government. 
The delay incident to the investigation proved that the 
newly created republic while well able to maintain itself in 
the face of all native dissent, was not capable of meeting 
the pressure of foreign powers like Japan. One of the 
earliest projects of the McKinley administration was to 
revive the question of annexation and to negotiate a treaty 
to that effect (June 16, 1897). "Annexation is not a 
change," stated McKinley, "it is a consummation." 

Suspicion of Japanese Designs in Hawaii 

The treaty met with opposition in two quarters: from 
certain sections of American public opinion which will be 
described below ; and from the Japanese Government which, 
elated by its success in the Sino-Japanese War and enriched 



HAWAII AND THE PHILIPPINES 613 

by the Chinese indemnity which was being devoted to naval 
and military purposes, was undergoing a wave of popular 
enthusiasm both for expansion and for the assertion of 
racial dignity. 

The Japanese Government through United States Min- 
ister Buck at Tokio, and even more energetically through 
the Japanese Minister, Hoshi Torn, at Washington, entered 
a vigorous protest— probably the most vigorous protest that 
up to that time had ever been issued by Japan to another 
power. This protest was doubly significant because it en- 
larged the question which might have been supposed to 
concern Japan. Not only did Japan protest that the an- 
nexation of the islands would endanger the settlement of the 
Japanese claims over the immigration question then pend- 
ing, and the general rights of Japanese in the islands under 
the treaties between Japan and Hawaii, but also that the 
annexation would "disturb the status quo in the Pacific." 
While the Japanese Government took occasion to deny that 
it entertained designs against the territorial integrity or the 
sovereignty of the islands, the fact remained that the Japa- 
nese claim for the right of citizenship in the islands was not 
withdrawn. Did, then, Japan have in mind a program of 
economic penetration similar to that which was already in 
operation in Korea? Such a conclusion is not absolutely 
necessary for it must be remembered +hat while Japan had 
succeeded in holding Formosa in 1895 the hold was not 
very secure, and Japan may have felt that the annexation 
of the Hawaiian Islands would precipitate a scramble for 
islands in the Pacific in the confusion of which Japan would 
be separated from Formosa just as she had been forced to 
retire from the Liaotung peninsula. The maintenance of 
the status quo, by which Japan was in possession of For- 
mosa, the Pescaderoes, the Lew Chews, the Bonins and the 
Kurile islands, was an important matter to Japan. ^ 

But Japan could not well afford to alienate American 
public opinion, nor the sympathies of the American Gov- 
ernment which had stood Japan in such good stead for 
so many years. Just at the moment things were going badly 



614 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

with Japan in Korea. After the murder of the queen the 
king had taken refuge in the Russian legation, and now the 
pohtical affairs of Korea were being directed from St. 
Petersburg. Meanwhile Japan was seeking friends for her- 
self in the struggle for the peninsula which was merely- 
postponed. Specifically Japan desired to induce American 
capital to invest in Korea under Japanese auspices with a 
view to ranging the United States on the Japanese side in 
the coming struggle. Japan quickly though informally 
withdrew its protest against the disturbance of the status 
quo in the Pacific and confined its later negotiations to the 
immigration and claims questions. It was at length agreed 
that the Hawaiian Republic should settle the claims for 
about $130,000 and Japan then adopted a conciliatory atti- 
tude on the immigration question which was at length dis- 
missed without any specific promises having been made by 
the American Government. When the annexation of the 
islands was accomplished a stipulation was inserted that 
American immigration laws would be extended to the 
islands thus bringing the Japanese immigrants under the 
provision of the treaty of 1894 between Japan and the 
United States. To this as well as to the extension of Ameri- 
can immigration laws to the Philippines the Japanese Gov- 
ernment made another very sharp protest, but without 
effect. 

While the military and economic value of the islands 
was sufficient to commend the annexation to many it was 
the Far Eastern question which at length upset the balance 
of opinion and hastened the incorporation of the islands. 
Following the declaration of a state of war with Spain 
(April 20, 1898) Commodore George Dewey destroyed the 
Spanish fleet at Manila May 1. Three days later Francis 
G. Newlands of Nevada introduced into the House a joint 
resolution to annex Hawaii to the United States. The de- 
bate on the bill began June 11. The House approved of it 
by vote of 209 to 91, and the Senate passed it July 6, 42 to 
21. On July 8, 1898, President McKinley gave to the joint 
resolution his very ready assent and the Hawaiian Islands 



I 



HAWAII AND THE PHILIPPINES 615 

became a part of the territory of the United States. The 
commission appointed by the President to make recom- 
mendations for legislation reported (December 6, 1898). 
By act of Congress April 30, 1900, the 'Territory of 
Hawaii" was created and a territorial form of government 
authorized. 

In order that we may have clearly before us the intimate 
relation between events and opinions in those momentous 
days, and may consider together the debates on the an- 
nexation of Hawaii and the cession of the Philippines, it 
is well at this point to review briefly the course of the 
Spanish American War. 



The Philippines in the Spanish-American War 

No relation whatever can be established between the 
outbreak of hostilities with Spain and the Far Eastern 
question except that there was a concurrence of dates in 
the disturbed conditions in China and the climax of the 
often recurring disturbances in Cuba, and that both syn- 
chronized with the expansive movement in American trade 
which had followed the recovery from the Panic of 1893.® 
The Sino- Japanese War had caused a very notable strength- 
ening of Continental fleets in Chinese waters.* 

Notwithstanding the warnings of naval oflacers fre- 
quently offered in the last quarter of a century, the Ameri- 
cans were without a naval base in the Far East.f There- 

*The naval forces in the Far East at the end of November, 1895, were as 
follows : ' 

British — total displacement — 58,908 tons 

Russian " " 58,838 " 

French " " 28,669 " 

German " " 23,078 " 

American " " 18,553 " 

The American naval force was even weaker than the figures would indicate for 
it included -some antiquated vessels like the Monocacy, an old side-wheeler, 
which upon the outbreak of the war in 1898 was stuck in the mud at Shanghai 
and could not be moved even to comply with the declaration of neutrality by 
the Chinese Government. Between 1895 and the spring of 1898 the American 
fleet was actually decreased, but at the battle of Manila Bay Commodore 
Dewey's vessels had a total displacement of about 19,000 tons. 

t The Secretary of the Navy, in his annual report for 1884, about four 
months before the occupation of Port Hamilton by the British naval forces, 
recommended that "additional coaling and naval stations" be established at 
nine points, among which he mentioned Port Hamilton as well as Honolulu. 
"From which latter naval station [Port Hamilton] and the ports of Korea there 



616 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

fore at the outbreak of the Spanish-American War the 
American fleet in the Far East was left by the declarations 
of neutrality of Japan, China and Great Britain, in a posi- 
tion which required either a retirement of the fleet to 
Honolulu from which a declaration of neutrality by the 
Hawaiian Republic might have barred it, or an attack upon 
Manila. The retirement of the American forces from the 
Far East in the spring of 1898 when the Chinese Empire 
was in such precarious condition would have resulted in a 
very great loss of American prestige and perhaps an attack 
upon American life and property, for the Chinese had al- 
ways been quick to interpret such events as an involuntary 
weakening of a foreign power. American shipping, also, 
would have been exposed to attack from the Spanish fleet 
at Manila. 

The attack upon Manila by the American forces was 
not, however, accidental or unforeseen. Commodore George 
Dewey was ordered to Japan (October 21, 1897) to assume 
command of the Far Eastern Squadron.* Ten days after 
the destruction of the U. S. S. Maine at Havana Harbor 
Dewey was instructed to hold himself in readiness to en- 
gage the Spanish Squadron at Manila and to conduct offen- 
sive operations against the Philippines. The intent of 
these orders, however, appears plainly to have been to 
remove the menace of the Spanish fleet rather than to ac- 
quire Manila. 

The American fleet was ordered to rendezvous at Hong- 
kong and measures were immediately taken to secure ade- 
quate supplies. Dewey was even prepared to ignore any 
declaration of neutrality which might be made by the Chi- 
nese Empire.^ He was informed that Japan, which at that 

should be established a regular line of steamers carrying the United States flag, 
connecting with the present line between San Francisco and Japan." 

Dr. H. C. Allen stated that W. W. Rockhill once remarked to him that the 
King of Korea had at one time through Admiral Shufeldt offered Port Hamil- 
ton to the United States as a naval station. This offer was made, presumably,, 
after the evacuation of the island by the British in 1887. 

* The partisan and political influences under which the entire war with 
Spain was conducted are well illustrated by the fact that Dewey, in order to 
make sure of the assignment to the Par Eastern Squadron, felt compelled to 
invoke the political influences of Senator Proctor of Vermont, his native state. 
He took this action upon the advice of Roosevelt, then Assistant Secretary or 
the Navy. 



HAWAII AND THE PHILIPPINES 617 

time was badly frightened by the presence of such large 
European forces in the East, would maintain the most scrup- 
ulous neutrality — a neutrality which, nevertheless, Japan 
was induced to relax slightly a few months after the war 
broke out. Upon the announcement that a state of hostili- 
ties existed between the United States and Spain (there was 
no declaration of war by either side) the British representa- 
tives at Hongkong requested the American fleet to leave 
by 4 p. M., April 25. Commodore Dewey complied and 
with no unnecessary delay proceeded to Manila Bay. The 
battle of May 1st with its swift and brilliant victory left 
Dewey in control of the bay, with the city in his power. 
Owing to the lack of a sufficient landing force Dewey re- 
frained from occupying the city which he would have been 
unable to police. Manila was not taken until August 13 
and then after some little resistance which probably would 
not have been presented had the Americans been prepared 
on May 1st to reap the fruits of their naval victory. 

Two concurrent events, significant in a study of policy, 
demand attention. 

There had been incipient or open rebellion in the Philip- 
pines for more than a decade. The execution by the Span- 
ish authorities of Dr. Jose Rizal, the Filipino patriot, De- 
cember 30, 1896, had produced a short-lived insurrection 
which was suspended early in 1897 by the arrival of Spanish 
reinforcements and the agreement of the rebel leaders, 
Andres Bonifacio and Emilio Aguinaldo, upon the payment 
of several hundred thousand dollars, to retire from the 
island. These men went to Hongkong and established a 
Filipino Junta with the money thus obtained and were able 
to continue their patriotic agitation. This Junta formally 
sought the intervention and protection of the United 
States and later proposed an alliance. The insurgents had 
previously sought the aid of Japan. Early in 1898 there 
were insurrections in both Luzon and Cebu. In April, 1898, 
Commodore Dewey had several conferences with the Fili- 
pino leaders at Hongkong, and in the latter part of the 
month E. Spencer Pratt, United States consul general at 



618 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

Singapore, had an interview with Aguinaldo, recently ar- 
rived from Hongkong, and appears to have proposed to 
him that he return to China, join Dewey's forces, and ac- 
company the Americans to Manila with a view to assisting 
them in the Philippines just as Gomez and Garcia had been 
helping the American forces in Cuba, by promoting insur- 
rection against the Spanish authority. Dewey approved 
of the suggestion and May 19 Aguinaldo was brought to 
Manila in the U. S. dispatch boat McColloch, upon 
Dewey's order.^ While Dewey was careful to make no 
promises to Aguinaldo, he did give no little encouragement 
and turned over to him the arsenal at Cavite and permitted 
him to organize his insurgent forces within the American 
lines. Consul General Rounseville Wildman had also as- 
sisted the insurrectos to purchase arms in Hongkong. 
Aguinaldo gave out the statement to the Filipinos that the 
United States would assist the insurrectors. 

It does not appear that Admiral Dewey or any of the 
American representatives in contact with the insurgents 
before the arrival of the first expeditionary forces June 30, 
had any suspicion that the United States would acquire 
the Philippines. "Every American citizen who came in 
contact with the Filipinos at the inception of the Spanish 
War," stated General Thomas M. Anderson, who was the 
first to give to Dewey the news that there was talk in the 
United States of the retention of the islands, "or at any 
time within a few months after hostilities began probably 
told those he talked with . . . that we intended to free 
them from Spanish oppression." In other words. Consul 
General Pratt, Admiral Dewey, and many more were re- 
affirming what had been stated hundreds of times by 
American representatives in the East since the days in 1832 
when Edmund Roberts made his treaties, viz., that the 
United States had neither the intention nor the constitu- 
tional right to acquire colonies. In support of this opinion 
there was also the very recent declaration of President 
McKinley at the outbreak of the war that the acquisition 
of territory was not the purpose of the United States. 



HAWAII AND THE PHILIPPINES 619 

The Filipino insurgents appear, however, to have con- 
sidered the possibihty that the American Government 
might alter its traditional policy, and to have decided that 
at any rate it would be well to accept such aid as was being 
immediately offered and to meet future problems as they 
arose, Aguinaldo organized a government on June 12, pro- 
claimed a provisional constitution June 23, and on August 
6, a week before the American forces occupied Manila, 
issued an appeal to the nations of the world for recognition 
of the independence and belligerency of his government. 
Meanwhile the insurrectos established military control over 
part of Luzon, 

The second significant event of this period was the 
action of the three European powers which only three years 
before had intervened to demand the recession of the 
Liaotung peninsula to China and subsequently forced the 
Empire to lease the various ports already referred to as 
well as to grant the spheres of influence, Germany, espe- 
cially, had revealed an alarming land-hunger, and was 
known to be intriguing in Europe to bring about interven- 
tion in the Spanish-American war. At Hongkong Prince 
Henry, the Kaiser's brother, who had been dispatched to 
China to make sure of the lease of Kiaochow, remarked to 
Dewey that he did not believe that the European powers 
would permit the United States to retain Cuba, Shortly 
after May first two German cruisers appeared at Manila 
and other German war vessels followed. Indeed a trans- 
port with 1200 reserves was anchored in the harbor for a 
month. Vice Admiral von Dietrichs stated to Dewey rather 
sharply: "I am here by order of the Kaiser, sir," and 
proceeded to show a notable indifference to the blockade 
regulations which Dewey had established. The German 
force at the end of June was larger than the blockading 
squadron. At the same time the Germans sustained very 
intimate relations with the Spanish authorities within the 
uncaptured city, and made themselves familiar with the 
military situation. President McKinley is reported to have 
believed that war with Germany was imminent. 



620 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

Meanwhile the ranking officer of the British naval ves- 
sels, Admiral Chichester, also observing the proceedings, 
upon orders from his government fully sustained Dewey's 
blockade regulations, and on August thirteenth when the 
American fleet proceeded to attack the city in cooperation 
with the American land forces, the British Admiral moved 
H.M.S. Immortalite to a point which placed it between the 
American fleet and the vessels of the European powers. 
Upon receiving notice that the city had surrendered to the 
Americans, the British vessel alone offered a salute to the 
American flag. 

Peace Negotiations with Spain 

The peace negotiations between the United States and 
Spain began July 22, with a message from the Queen to 
President McKinley, transmitted through Jules Cambon, 
the French Ambassador at Washington.^" To the inquiry 
of the Queen as to the possible terms of peace the President 
replied, July 30, stipulating (1) the relinquishment by 
Spain of Cuba; (2) the cession of to the United States, and 
the evacuation by Spain of the islands of Porto Rico and 
the other islands now under sovereignty of Spain in the 
West Indies, and also the cession of an island in the 
Ladrones to be selected by the United States; (3) the right 
to occupy and hold "the city, bay and harbor of Manila 
pending the conclusion of a treaty of peace which shall de- 
termine the control, disposition, and the government of the 
Philippines." The question of pecuniary indemnity was 
reserved for subsequent discussion. The stipulation for the 
cession of an island in the Ladrones had reference to a cable 
station which, as already noted, had become necessary be- 
cause of the monopoly of the Great Northern Telegraph 
Company in Japan and China. The carefully drawn speci- 
fications as to Manila and the Philippines indicates either 
that McKinley, encouraged by the decision of Congress on 
the Hawaiian annexation, had already determined to hold 
some part of the Philippines if possible, or at least that he 



HAWAII AND THE PHILIPPINES 621 

was giving this question close consideration. It must have 
been quite obvious to any one familiar with the dispatches 
from Tokio, Seoul and Peking in the summer of 1898, that 
the Philippines offered a most important strategic position 
for the United States in case the threatened partition of 
China along the lines of the spheres of influence should take 
place. A close study of the trade conditions during the 
century since the American flag first appeared in Manila 
Bay, would have indicated that the commercial value of 
the islands was of very much less importance than the 
strategic advantages.^ ^ 

"The terms relating to the Philippines seem," replied 
the Spanish Minister of State (August 7) "to our under- 
standing, to be quite indefinite." He pointed out that the 
Spanish flag still waved over Manila and that the control of 
Spain of the archipelago was still unquestioned by any 
military operations. However, the protocol, signed August 
12, contained the stipulation with reference to the Philip- 
pines substantially as outlined by President McKinley 
twelve days before. 

In his instructions to the Peace Commissioners (Sep- 
tember 16) the President revealed an expanding purpose in 
the Far East by ordering them to demand "the cession in 
full right and sovereignty of the island of Luzon, and equal 
port and trade rights with the Spanish in all unceded ter- 
ritory in the islands." McKinley elaborated his reasons 
for these demands: 

"Without any original thought of complete or even partial acquisi- 
tion, the presence and success of our a.rms at Manila imposes upon us 
obligations which we cannot disregard. The march of events rules 
and overrules human action. Avowing unreservedly the purpose 
which has animated all our efforts, and still solicitous to adhere to 
it, we can not be unmindful that without any desire or design on 
our part the war has brought us new duties and responsibilities which 
we must meet and discharge as becomes a great nation on whose 
growth and career from the beginning the Ruler of Nations has 
plainly written the high command and pledge of civilization." 

The above paragraph was obviously a reference to the 
alarming international situation in the Far East. Asia was 



622 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

in imminent danger of a convulsion which, once started, 
could hardly have failed to involve the entire world. The 
Philippines were unlikely to remain long in the hands of 
Spain which, impoverished by war, was unable to defend 
them and badly in need of money. Either by conquest or 
by purchase they would very probably fall into the out- 
stretched hands of some waiting European power — very 
likely Germany — if the Americans were to stand aside, 

"Incidental to our tenure of the Philippines is the commercial 
opportunity to which American statesmanship can not be indifferent," 
continued Mclvinley. "It is just to use every legitimate means for 
the enlargement of American trade; but we seek no advantages in 
the Orient which are not common to all. Asking only the open door 
for ourselves, we are ready to accord the open door to others. The 
commercial opportunity which is naturally and inevitably associated 
with this new opening depends less on large territorial possessions 
than upon an adequate commercial basis and upon broad and equal 
privileges," 

This, the first use in an American document of the 
"open door" phrase establishes the connection between 
McKinley's Chinese and Philippines policies. A fortui- 
tous concurrence of events had brought within American 
grasp the very expedient which Commodore Perry and Dr. 
Peter Parker had urged in 1853 and 1857. Manila might 
become the equivalent for Hongkong, and the leased ports 
of China, for the lack of which American trade and interests 
in the Far East were, in the summer of 1898, in serious 
prospective if not present embarrassment. 

Exactly forty days after signing the instructions to the 
Peace Commissioners who had departed immediately for 
Paris where the conference was held. Secretary of State 
Hay (October 26) still further enlarged the American de- 
mands by cabling to the Commissioners : 

"The information which has come to the President since your 
departure convinces him that the acceptance of the cession of Luzon 
alone, leaving the rest of the islands subject to Spanish rule, or to 
be the subject of future contention, can not be justified on political, 
commercial, or humanitarian grounds. The cession must be of the 
whole of the archipelago or none. The latter is wholly inadmissible 
and the former must therefore be required.''' 



HAWAII AND THE PHILIPPINES 623 

The precise nature of the information which induced 
McKinley thus to increase his demands would appear to 
have been gathered from the reports of the American mili- 
tary and naval authorities and from the diplomatic corre- 
spondence from the various foreign capitals in both the 
East and the West. While Admiral Dewey had thought so 
little of the first German interference at Manila that at 
first he had not even made a report upon it, the facts were 
reported to Europe or London by at least one foreign con- 
sul at Manila and were known by the President. Various 
American military and naval officers from Manila were dis- 
patched to Paris where they appeared before the Peace 
Commissioners in October and expressed themselves very 
frankly.* Russia was reported to be desirous of establishing 
at least a naval base in the islands. It was very unlikely 
that France, the possessions of which in South China were 
most immediately concerned, would let such another op- 
portunity pass unutilized. Japan, fearful whether in an- 
other scramble for islands she might not be separated from 
Formosa as she had been from Port Arthur, was very de- 
sirous that the Philippines be brought under American pro- 
tection, though not unwilling to effect an understanding 
with the United States by which the Empire could share 
in the possession of the islands. Great Britain was alarmed 
at the prospect of the increase of European influence so near 
Hongkong, Singapore and her South Pacific possessions. 
The arguments against the retention by the United States 
either of a mere naval base or of the island of Luzon were, 
from the standpoint of military and political affairs, over- 
whelming. The complete relinquishment or only partial 
possession of the islands would have promoted war rather 
than peace in Asia. 

After many protests and with the utmost reluctance 

♦"Senator Frye : Q. If we should adopt your line of demarcation what do 
you think Spain would do with the balance of those islands? 

A. Sell them to -Germany. 

Q. Is not Germany about as troublesome a neighbor as we could get? 

A. The most so, in my opinion. I think it probable that the balance of 
the Spanish possessions in the Pacific not acquired by us will go to Germany. 
Germany has long desired to possess the Carolines, and she hoisted her flag 
at Yap in 1S8G." (Statement of Commander R. B. Bradford, U. S. N., October 
14, 1898, before the United States Peace Commission at Paris. '2) 



624 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

Spain, while she "relinquished" all claims to sovereignty 
over Cuba, "ceded" Porto Rico, Guam and the Philippines 
to the United States in the Treaty of Paris (December 10, 
1898). It was agreed also in lieu of the assumption by the 
United States of the Spanish debt in Cuba or the Philip- 
pines, that Spain should receive $20,000,000 for the Philip- 
pines, 

Debate on Hawaii and the Philippines 

Five phases of the debates in Congress over the annexa- 
tion of Hawaii and the Philippines may be distinguished. 
It was a partisan contest in which both the Democratic and 
Republican party leaders kept an eye upon the presidential 
campaign of 1900. There was the clear-cut legal question 
as to whether the American Government had the constitu- 
tional right to acquire non-contiguous territory not designed 
to be admitted to statehood in the Union. There was the 
moral question arising out of the consent-of-the-governed 
doctrine. There was the economic question which included 
on its industrial side the fear of the introduction of Asiatic 
cheap labor and on the commercial side the ambitions of 
the trade expansionists. There was, also, the question of 
expediency: All other phases of the subject being dismissed 
as settled, did political, military or commercial expediency 
demand annexation? It was one of the greatest debates in 
American congressional history.^^ 

Of the partisan passages in the debate little need be 
said, although one would like to record them as an illustra- 
tion of the futile demagogic clap-trap of the politician such 
as always intrudes itself in popular government.* How- 
ever, neither question was decided on purely partisan lines, 
and in the final vote on the Treaty of Paris, while several 
Republicans voted against it, there were enough Democratic 

*Por example, in the debate on Hawaii : "But above all, William McKinley 
■will have sore need for the three electoral votes of Hawaii in the melancholy 
days of November, in 1900, when he again faces at the polls the great tribune 
of the people, William Jennings Bryan, of Nebraska." And again : "There is 
a pressing necessity for two rotten borough Senators to eke out the single 
gold-standard majority at the other end of the capitol." These were two ofj 
the three reasons assigned by Champ Clark (Dem.) to the Republicans as 
being the actual motives for the annexation of Hawaii. 



HAWAII AND THE PHILIPPINES 625 

and Populist votes to secure the necessary two-thirds ap- 
proval. At the beginning of 1899 the annexation of the 
Philippines had become so popular in various parts of the 
country that the Democratic leaders, Bryan included, 
deemed it unwise to oppose it. Within six months after 
Dewey's victory the territorial enlargement of the nation 
had ceased, in large measure, to be a partisan question. 

The constitutional and moral aspects of the choice were 
discussed in able and elevated manner quite in contrast 
with the partisan debate. The opinion of Chief Justice 
Taney in the Dred Scott case was frequently alluded to.* 
Much was made of the fact that both in Hawaii and the 
Philippines whatever government might be set up after 
annexation had been accomplished would be without the 
consent of the governed, and that the transfer of the ter- 
ritories themselves was being advocated without any clear 
indication of the consent of the people. This argument, 
strong in fact, lost much of its force from those who while 
advancing it still maintained that naval bases both at Pearl 
Harbor and in the Philippines ought to be acquired. 

The minority report on the joint resolution for the 
annexation of Hawaii was presented in the House by Hugh 
A. Dinsmore who had for two years (1887-9) been the 
United States Minister Resident at Seoul. Dinsmore 
argued that the annexation would be neither constitutional 
nor desirable. "If we acquire Hawaii, it is but the first 
step in the progress of colonial aggrandizement," stated 
Dinsmore. "What must we expect if we enter upon a 
colonial policy? Suppose we set our feet upon territory in 
the Orient. From that moment we become involved in 
every European controversy with reference to aggressions 
and the acquirement of territory there. No longer will our 
ancient peace abide with us." Much of the opposition to 
annexation was based on the assumption that by the con- 
tinuance of a policy of territorial and political isolation it 

* "There is certainly no power given by the constitution to the Federal 
Government to establish or maintain colonies bordering on the United States 
or at a distance, to be ruled and governed at its own pleasure, nor to enlarge 
its territorial limits in any way except by the admission of new States." 



626 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

would be possible for the United States to avoid war. 
Senator George Frisbie Hoar (Massachusetts), although he 
had already set his face like flint against the acquisition of 
the Philippines, nevertheless saw the futility of this argu- 
ment when applied to Hawaii. After a conference with 
President McKinley in which the latter had told him of 
the landing of the Japanese immigrants at Honolulu, of 
the evidence of their military training, of the patent de- 
termination of Japan to acquire the islands, Hoar went into 
the Senate and made a powerful speech in advocacy of 
annexation. He based his argument largely upon the con- 
viction that the failure to annex at that time would lead 
to inevitable conflict with Japan at some future date. He 
pointed out that were a line to be drawn from the point of 
American territory in the Aleutian Islands nearest Asia to 
the southernmost point of American territory on the Pacific 
Coast, Hawaii would lie eastward of that line. The an- 
nexation of Hawaii was to Senator Hoar, indeed to most 
Americans, primarily a measure of coast defense. While 
Dewey's victory at Manila served to expedite the considera- 
tion of the question, it was the fear of Japanese aggression 
which carried the greater weight in the debate and it 
seems probable that this argument alone would have been 
sufficient to accomplish the annexation. 

In the course of the Hawaiian debate practically all the 
partisan, constitutional, and moral grounds were traversed 
and in the consideration of the Philippine question no new 
principles were brought forward. But the facts were in 
some respects very different. Whatever may have been the 
intent of the makers of the Constitution in respect to the 
acquisition of non-contiguous territory for colonial pur- 
poses it is at least certain that no adequate provision had 
been made for specific constitutional means to meet the 
situation which developed at Manila after May 1st, 1898. 
In the first place the American fleet in Manila Bay was in 
actual danger. The arrival of reinforcements from Spain, 
the stiffening of either Spanish or Filipino opposition to 
Dewey's presence, or the intervention of European powers 



HAWAII AND THE PHILIPPINES 627 

were all possible eventualities. There were the gravest mili- 
tary reasons for strengthening the American forces, and for 
the occupation of the city of Manila. Additional naval 
vessels were sent and by the end of July there had arrived 
from San Francisco an expeditionary force of nearly 11,000 
although Dewey had asked for only 5000. The occupation 
of Manila, August 13, did not greatly alter the military 
situation even though an armistice had been established. 
Talk of European intervention still continued, the Germans 
extended their interest to other islands of the archipelago, 
and the attitude of the insurrectos was most uncertain. In 
all probability conflict with the Filipinos might have been 
avoided had the American Government possessed the power 
to issue immediately a statement guaranteeing ultimate 
autonomy to the Islands under an American or even an 
international protectorate. But no such power existed. 

While these facts were sufficient to account for the new 
aspects of the case presented to Congress in December, 
1898, there was another fact of greater actual potency. 
President McKinley and his advisers at some date which 
may be clearly fixed as not earlier than May 1, and not 
later than the end of that month, became persuaded that 
the retention of at least Manila would be desirable for 
either military or commercial reasons, or for both. The 
President became convinced also that the American people 
would support such a program. It soon became evident, 
however, that it would be unsafe to retain Manila without 
taking the entire archipelago for much the same reasons 
that it had been accepted as unsafe to retain Pearl Harbor 
without annexing all of the Hawaiian Islands. The result 
was that a situation was deliberately, as well as of necessity, 
created in the Philippines which made the debate on the 
approval of the Treaty of Paris somewhat different from 
the debate on Hawaii. When Congress met in December, 
and when the article of the Treaty of Paris was sent to the 
Senate early in January, there were already more than 
15,000 American soldiers, mostly volunteers, in the Islands, 
and they were in danger of a Filipino uprising. This new 



628 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

situation abounded in opportunities to appeal to American 
national pride, and placed both the politician and the 
statesman who viewed with alarm the prospect of colonial 
possessions in positions where only the wisest of men ought 
to be. Nothing in all previous American political expe- 
rience afforded an adequate precedent or guide. 

On December 10, 1898, the day the Treaty of Paris was 
signed. Senator George G. Vest (Missouri) introduced a 
joint resolution: 

"That under the Constitution of the United States no power is 
given to the Federal Government to acquire territory to be held and 
governed permanently as colonies. 

"The colonial system of European nations can not be established 
under our present Constitution, but all territory acquired by the 
Government, except such small amount as may be necessary for coal- 
ing stations, correction of boundaries, and similar governmental pur- 
poses, must be acquired and governed with the purpose of ultimately 
organizing such territory into States suitable for admission into the 
Union." 

Two days later the debate began but the President did not 
wait for a decision. On December 21, he instructed the 
War Department to extend the military government al- 
ready established at Manila over the entire archipelago as 
rapidly as possible. McKinley described American rights 
in the islands as acquired by conquest.^'* This instruction, 
which was a few days later telegraphed to Manila and pub- 
lished, consolidated the opposition of the insurrectos to 
the United States, whereas the passage of the Vest resolu- 
tion would probably have prevented the approaching re- 
bellion.* 

Senator Augustus 0. Bacon (Georgia) introduced on 
January 11 a resolution which also would have prevented 
the impending rebellion. 

"That the United States hereby disclaim any disposition or in- 
tention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction or control over said 
islands, and assert their determination, when a stable and independent 

*"They begged for some tangible concession from the United States Govern- 
ment — one which they could present to the people and which might serve to 
allay the excitement." (Report of meeting. January 9, 1899, of American 
officers appointed by Major General E. S. Otis to confer with commission rep- 
resenting the Aguinaldo government.) ^^ 



HAWAII AND THE PHILIPPINES 629 

government shall have been duly erected therein entitled to recogni- 
tion as such, to transfer to said government, upon terms which shall 
he reasonable and just, all rights secured under the cession by Spain, 
and to thereupon leave the government and control of the islands to 
their people." 

The passage of this resolution would have given to the 
Philippines a status similar to that already accorded to 
Cuba. February 14th, a vote on the Bacon resolution re- 
sulted in a tie, and Vice President Hobart cast the deciding 
vote against it. The same day a joint resolution, previously 
introduced by Samuel D. McEnery (Louisiana) was passed, 
26 to 22, in which it was stated that "it is the intention of 
the United States to establish on said islands a government 
suitable to the wants and conditions of the inhabitants of 
said islands, to prepare for them local self-government,^ 
and in due time to make such disposition of said islands as 
will promote the interests of the citizens of the United 
States and the inhabitants of said islands." Permanent an- 
nexation was expressly disavowed. After so much en- 
couragement from the opposition which was conducting an 
active campaign for immediate withdrawal of the American 
forces, the Filipinos were less than ever prepared to accept 
a status as a theoretically conquered people. In point of 
fact the American forces had not even conquered the island 
of Luzon. The most that can be said in extenuation is that 
the policy and the resolution had been adopted in great 
ignorance of the actual facts in the islands, and in a blissful 
and exalted assumption that any race ought to regard con- 
quest by the American people as a superlative blessing. 

Significance of Senate Approval of Treaty of Paris 

The vote on the Treaty of Paris was set for February 
6. Two days before the vote the insurgents and the 
American military forces came into actual conflict, and 
some American soldiers were killed. That this fact in- 
fluenced the decision of the Senate there can be little doubt. 

♦Italics by T. D. 



630 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

The vote was 57 to 27, three Repubhcan senators voting 
with the opposition. A change of two votes would have 
defeated the treaty. While there would appear to be no 
foundation for the charge that the American military forces 
in the Philippines had deliberately brought on the conflict 
of February 4 with a view of influencing the Senate, it is 
quite evident that while the treaty was under consideration, 
the Administration had created a condition in the Islands 
which in the end exercised a coercing influence on the 
Senate. That such a policy had appeared to be necessary 
at the time reveals how utterly inadequate are the provi- 
sions of the American Constitution enabling the govern- 
ment to initiate wise preventive measures to meet such 
threatening situations as were now constantly recurring in 
Asia. 

"The war that followed it," w.rote Senator Hoar seven years later, 
"crushed the Republic that the Philippine people had set up for 
themselves, deprived them of their independence, and established 
there, by American power, a government in which the people have no 
part, against their will. No man, I think, will seriously question 
that that action was contrary to the Declaration of Independence, the 
fundamental principles declared in many State constitutions, the 
principles avowed by the founders of the Republic, and by our states- 
men of all parties down to a time long after the death of Lincoln." " 

Such a passage, which was and is still more or less char- 
acteristic of the opposition to the acquisition of the Islands 
is worthy of note. It assumed what was not true. The 
Filipinos had not set up a "republic"; the nature of the 
government which they would select, or which Aguinaldo 
and his advisers would have selected for them, was not clear, 
and the measures which they had actually adopted by 
February 1, 1899, by no means prove that they were likely 
to set up democratic institutions. The rebellion arose not 
in support of a republic but in opposition to the proposed 
conquest by the United States. 

But even were one to grant the entire truth of every 
similar assertion made by Senator Hoar and so many others, 
one need not reach his conclusion in the absence of any 
constructive suggestion for dealing with the international 



HAWAII AND THE PHILIPPINES 631 

situation as it existed in the Far East in 1898. Nowhere 
in the debates on the PhiUppine question does one find any- 
adequate meeting of the facts by the opponents of the Ad- 
ministration policy. Granted that the President, his ad- 
visers and the military diplomats at Manila blundered into 
very unnecessary and tactless positions before the Filipinos, 
yet what else was there to do but to remain and to extend 
the American domain to the entire archipelago? To have 
retired would, at the worst, have precipitated war in the 
Far East, or, at the best, it would have created another 
Korea. 

The more important conclusions to which we may come 
from a study of these events are: (1) The United States 
could not withdraw from the Philippines in 1898. (2) 
Notwithstanding the opposition of a very considerable sec- 
tion of the American people, the majority, led by the Ad- 
ministration, clearly wished the Philippines to be retained. 
(3) The diplomatic negotiations with the Filipinos were 
badly handled and the President, while declining to exceed 
his constitutional powers by granting the "tangible con- 
cessions" desired, did none the less severely strain his 
executive war-making authority by ordering the extension 
of the military government over the archipelago, which was 
equivalent to authorizing a campaign of conquest, while the 
Senate was discussing the question. (4) McKinley created 
a situation in the Philippines either because of supposed 
military necessity or because of the international situation, 
which had the effect of coercing the Senate. (5) Like Cass's 
instructions to Reed in 1857, and like Seward's policy in 
Japan and his proposed policy in Korea, the McKinley 
policy in 1898 was profoundly influenced by the desire to 
assert American rights in the East in the face of European 
aggression. 

The McKinley policy in the Philippines was not new: 
it was a return in principle to the policy of Seward. Funda- 
mentally it was not a departure from but a continuance of 
traditional American policy in Asia, for it was exerted in 
the interest of the open door and of sustaining China, yes, 



632 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

of sustaining Asia against the aggressions of Europe. It 
was, however, a reversal of American policy as it had been 
applied so futilely in Korea since 1882, Notwithstanding 
the Filipino insurrection, the anti-foreign outbreak in 
China, and the annoyance of many Japanese at the in- 
crease of American domain, the United States was at the 
end of the century more nearly allied, by political and com- 
mercial necessity, to Asia, and to Asiatic aspirations, than 
to Europe. 

The most unfortunate feature of the entire debate had 
been that it was settled without any clear understanding 
by the American people of the relation of Hawaii and the 
Philippines to the still larger question of American policy 
in Asia. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

1. C. A. Conant: "The United States in the Orient." This is a 

discussion of the economic and industrial condition of the 
United States and Europe at the close of the century, with 
special reference to its influence on the demands for oppor- 
tunity for foreign investments. 

2. "Letters from the Kaiser to the Czar" (edited by Isaac Don 

Levine, New York, 1920), p. 49. This reference to a proposed 
alliance to include the United States is discussed in the follow- 
ing chapter. 

3. "Addresses of John Hay" (New York, 1900), pp. 163 ff. Me- 

morial address on William McKinley, delivered Feb. 27, 1902. 

4. See Moore's "Digest," Vol. 1, pp. 475 S., for an exhaustive digest, 

based on manuscript archives as well as on printed documents 
of American policy with reference to Hawaii. 

5. President McKinley, however, fully credited the belief that 

Japan had designs on Hawaii. See George F. Hoar: "Auto- 
biography of Seventy Years" (New York, 1906), Vol. 2, 
chap. 33, particularly pp. 305-7. 

6. "Autobiography of George Dewey" (New York, 1913), pp. 168 ff. 

For an exhaustive and critical bibliography of every phase of 
early American relations with the Philippines see James A. 
Le Roy: "The Americans in the Philippines" (Boston and 
New York, 1914), 2 vols. The contemporary discussion of all 
phases of the Philippine question was so partisan and often so 
misleading that the critical bibliographical notes by Le Roy 
in his footnotes are an indispensable guide. No other single 
phase of American relations with the Far East has ever been 
so critically and judicially studied. See A. Yiallate: "Les 
preliminaires de la guerre hispano-americaine et I'annexion 



HAWAII AND THE PHILIPPINES 633 

des Philippines par les etats-unis," Revue Historique, juillet- 
aout, 1903, pp. 282-3, for a Continental point of view; also 
Baron von Eckardstein's "Ten Years at the Court of St. 
James 1S95-1905." 

7. North China Daily News, Nov. 29, 1895. 

8. Dewey : "Autobiography," 168 ff. 

9. Le Roy gives a thoroughly adequate discussion, based on Filipino 

as well as American documents of the relations of Pratt, Wild- 
man and Dewey to Aguinaldo. For a much less judicial and 
more partisan discussion see James H. Blount : "The Ameri- 
can Occupation of the Philippines, 1898-1912." The pamphlet 
literature, magazine articles, and government documents are 
too multitudinous to admit of inclusion here. 

10. Moore's "Digest," vol. 1, pp. 520 ff. John Bassett Moore had 

been in the Department of State for several years, and became 
Secretary of the American Peace Commission at Paris. 

11. For a highly enthusiastic estimate of the possibilities of Ameri- 

can trade with Asia- — really a campaign document for the 
Administration policy — see Frank A. Vanderlip, Century 
Magazine, August, 1898. This was partially reprinted in 
S. Doc. 62 :55-3, Pt. I, pp. 563 ff. 

12. S. Doc. 62:55-3 (Pt. I) p. 484. 

13. A very adequate collection of these debates is to be found in 

Marion Mills Miller : "Great Debates in American History" 
(New York, 1913) 14 vols.— Vol. 3, chaps. 5 and 6. 

14. S. Doc. 331:57-1, pp. 776-8. 

15. S. Doc. 208 :56-l, p. 62. 

16. Hoar's "Autobiography," Vol. 2, p. 304, 



CHAPTER XXXII 

THE EEASSEETION OF THE OPEN-DOOR POLICY 

In the McKinley administration the most aggressive 
force in the relations of the Government with Asia was not 
the Department of State. The PhiUppine poHcy issued 
from the President and he entrusted its execution to the 
miUtary branch of the government. The Department of 
State does not appear to have had much to do with it. It 
was carried forward by miHtary rather than by diplomatic 
measures. Much subsequent trouble would probably have 
been avoided had it been otherwise. There are at least 
intimations that McKinley would have been willing to 
adopt in China a policy similar to that which was being 
applied in the Philippines. Happily the entrance of John 
Hay into the McKinley cabinet in the autumn of 1898 re- 
stored the ascendancy of diplomacy over military interven- 
tion and led to measures which not only averted the dis- 
memberment of China but likewise rendered unnecessary 
a program such as McKinley might otherwise have pro- 
posed.* On the other hand, the determination of the Presi- 
dent gave to the Hay diplomacy a support without which 
it might have been less successful. f 

*John W. Foster reports a conversation between McKinley and Hay in 
which the former is asserted to have expressed a willingness to share in the 
partition of China in case the dismemberment of the Empire were actually to 
take place. 1 

tJohn Hay, U. S. Ambassador at the Court of St. James since the begin- 
ning of the McKinley administration, was. invited to become Secretary of State, 
August 13, 1S98, in place of R. W. Day, who had been appointed a member of 
the Peace Commission. Hay assumed the duties of the new oflSce September 30. 
He was the most experienced diplomat appointed to this office in the nineteenth 
century, and one of the best informed men of his day upon European politics. 
In the direction of diplomatic affairs in the Far East Mr. Hay was ably 
assisted by W. W. Rockhill who. at that time Director of the Bureau of 
American Republics, had been almost continuously in the diplomatic service 
or the Department of State for fourteen years. Rockhill entered the diplo- 
matic service at his own charges at the Legation in Peking in 1884, retiring 
three years later. In 1887 he served for a few months as charge d'affaires at 
Seoul at a very critical time. Subsequently he extended his knowledge of Far 
Eastern afCairs by travels and researches, and in 1899 was exceedingly well 

634 



THE REASSERTION OF THE OPEN-DOOR POLICY 635 



The Far East in 1899 

The close of the Sino-Japanese War had revealed a 
working agreement between Russia, Germany and France. 
The most subtle force in this informal alliance, perhaps, 
was Germany, which was already seeking to divert the at- 
tention of Russia from the Near to the Far East.* Whatever 
the relations between Germany and Russia it is evident that 
the place of France in the concert was due not to any desire 
to assist Germany but rather to the fact that the extension 
of Russian military and commercial influence in the Far 
East promised an ever widening field for French investors. 
In contrast to this concert of powers we find the other three 
nations which were interested in China, the so-called ''trad- 
ing nations" — Great Britain, Japan and the United States 
— severally in diplomatic isolation, and yet collectively 
opposed to Russia, Germany and France, and thus drawn 
by a common interest to each other. 

The diplomatic cordiality between Russia and the 
United States, so noticeable in China after 1850, certainly 
did not arise out of any spiritual kinship between the Rus- 
sian and the American political theories or institutions. It 
was, however, profitable to both nations and was studiously 
cultivated by Russia. In her long struggle with England 

prepared to interpret the situation in the Bast. It has often been said that 
Rockhill's position in the Bureau of American Republics was secured for him 
in order that the Department of State might still have the benefit of his advice 
on diplomatic matters in Asia. Hay regarded him as one of the two best 
American diplomats, the other being Henry White. = The extent of Hay's 
dependence upon Rockhill has, perhaps, not yet been fully appreciated. 

*Russia was for the moment usually regarded as the leader in the concert 
of powers which brouglit about the recession of the Liaotung peninsula. There 
were even rumors that Li Hung Chang had been assured by Russia before the 
Treaty of Shimoneselti that Port Arthur would be returned to China. General 
Foster, who would be expected to know, denied this. Count Witte in his 
Memoirs states that he was the initiator of the plan and records that the deci- 
sion was reached on March 30. 1895. KorfE and other Russians credit Witte's 
statement. Cordier believes that France was the initiator, having addressed 
a communication to Russia on the subject April 10. The writer has heard it 
asserted by one who was intimately associated with the diplomatic corps at 
the time that it was usually accepted that the plan for intervention was first 
put forward by the French Legation at Peking. There is also another version 
of the affair which was credited by Minister Denby but which seems never to 
have been widely known. It was believed that throughout the negotiations at 
Shinioneseki Li Hung Chanc was in telegraphic communication with Herr von 
Brandt, formerly German Minister at Peking and then attached to the German 
Foreign Office. It was believed that Li Hung Chang, after feigning illness for 
two days, signed the treaty immediately upon receipt of a telegram from von 
Brandt stating that the powers would come to the rescue of China. Count 
Hayashi believed that Germany was the initiator of the concert.^ 



636 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

she sought the United States, also opposed by England, as 
a friend and possible ally. So long as Great Britain was 
seeking to break down the Monroe Doctrine she was creat- 
ing favorable conditions for a Russo- American understand- 
ing. Russian friendship for the United States was always 
related to British policy; the sale of Alaska was a case in 
point. While Stoeckl made it appear that Russia was re- 
luctant to sell, the situation was in fact quite otherwise. 
Russia was eager to place in the keeping of the United 
States a territory which Great Britain could so easily have 
taken from Russia in the case of a war such as seemed 
probable. Russia was equally glad to be free to devote her 
energies to Eastern Asia. Almost immediately after the 
sale of Alaska Russia adopted in Peking a policy which 
aroused the suspicion of the American representatives.* 

The policy of Russia in China appears to have been 
always to conciliate China and win her especial good will 
with a view to capitalizing it subsequently as was illus- 
trated in the relations between Russia and China after 1895. 
There had been many similar episodes in the preceding 
thirty-five years. Russia never sincerely accepted the co- 
operative policy in China. Russian policy in Korea was 
equally devious. These methods and designs in the East, 
coinciding as they did with the reports of the Siberian exile 
atrocities, the new outbursts of Jewish persecutions, as well 
as with the new cordial understanding between the United 
States and Great Britain, definitely ended the traditional 
friendship which had led Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1871 
to pen his poetic invocation: "God bless the Empire that 
loves the Great Union, Strength to her People ! Long Life 
to the Czar!" 

Cordial relations between Germany and the United 
States in China existed until 1882. Then Germany be- 

*In a personal letter, March 13, 1873, Minister Low stated to Secretary of 
State Fish that he had reason to believe that Russia was not sincerely cooper- 
ating with the other ministers in the common plan to force the audience ques- 
tion. He believed that Russia was secretly advising the Chinese not to yield. 
He thought that Russia was either seeking to prevent the other powers from 
increasing their influence, or was hoping to provoke hostilities between China 
and the powers, thus creating conditions similar to 1860 which would be 
favorable for Russia to acquire more Chinese territory.* 



THE REASSERTION OF THE OPEN-DOOR POLICY 637 

trayed indications of an aggressive policy which raised 
questions as to how far the Americans ought to carry co- 
operation.* The advance of German influence in Japan in 
the next decade was accomplished at the expense of the 
United States and still further separated the two powers. 
The seizure of Kiaochow and the establishment of the Ger- 
man sphere of influence in Shantung brought Germany into 
direct conflict with fundamental American policy. At the 
same time the harmonious relations between Berlin and, 
Washington were being disturbed by questions of reciprocal 
tariff arrangements. 

There had been no kinship between the policies of 
France and those of the United States in China at least 
since 1862 when the French withdrew from the Interna- 
tional Settlement at Shanghai. The Americans were wholly 
opposed to the French protectorate of the Roman Catholic 
missions and regarded French policy as one which tended 
to create general hostile feeling among the Chinese for all 
foreigners. American policy had, however, never taken 
the form of active opposition to French interests and while 
the United States had sought to mediate in the Franco- 
Chinese War (1884-5) the attitude of Frelinghuysen had 
^been one of the most scrupulous and even timid neutrality. 
In 1899 the relations between the United States and France 
were cordial, but the American Government was as far 
removed from sympathy with French as with Russian or 
German designs in the East. 

The old cordiality between Japan and the United States 
was cooling, but it W9.s not cold. The United States had 
stood by Japan in the Sino-Japanese War, and the immi- 
gration and Hawaiian questions had only created a passing 
chill. ' The emeute of October 8, 1895, in Seoul, the murder 
of the queen and the subsequent acquittal of Miura had 
greatly reduced American regard for the Japanese but there 

*"The government with whom we have been most in sympathy is Ger- 
many. . . ." But "in recent years Germany has shown activity in the Bast. 
Her policy has been eager, decisive, and peremptory, going so far ... as to 
land troops on Chinese soil, and prevent the Chinese from carrying out their 
interpretation of the treaties. The advance of German influence had been 
marked and steady." (Young to Frelinghuysen, February 4, 1883.*) Cordier 
relates the episode at Swatow where German marines were landed." 



638 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

had been little to choose between the methods of China and 
of Japan in Korea except that one had failed and the other 
^ had been successful. The American occupation of the 
Philippines was the best test of the quality of Japanese- 
American relations. Before 1898 the Filipino insurgents 
had sought aid from Japan and a small quantity of arms 
had been smuggled into Luzon from Japanese sources. 
When the insurgents turned against the United States in 
1899 they again appealed to Japan for sympathy and help. 
Through a German firm in Japan some munitions were 
actually started on their way to the Philippines, but they 
were intercepted and there is no reason to suppose that the 
effort ever received any sympathy from the Japanese Gov- 
ernment. Japan was never in a more difficult situation than 
in 1898 and the Japanese Government, as well as the more 
conservative press, expressed the earnest wish that the 
United States would remain in the Philippines. Among 
all the possible neighbors to Japan, particularly to Formosa, 
Japan vastly preferred the United States to any other 
Western power. Furthermore, the traditional American 
policy was as favorable to Japan in China as it had been 
to Japan in Korea. The closing of the doors in China 
before Japan had really entered them in force, or the par- 
tition of the Empire at a time when Japan was wholly 
unable to share in the supposed benefits, were as inimical 
to Japan as to the United States. The two nations were 
natural allies and Japan, recently so roughly treated by the 
concert, probably would have been not unwilling to effect 
a formal alliance with both Great Britain and the United 
States. 

The relations between the United States and Great 

Britain in the Far East had never been actually unfriendly 

since 1853. They reached their maximum of cordiality in 

both China and Japan in 1866 and then cooled slowly until 

in the second Cleveland administration all semblance of 

1 cooperation disappeared. But in 1898-9 Great Britain 

1 found herself diplomatically isolated in Europe and opposed 

1 in the East by the three most powerful European powers. 



THE REASSERTION OF THE OPEN-DOOR POLICY 639 

She then turned agam to the United States just as she had 
under shxiilar conditions in 1854 at the outbreak of the 
Crimean War. England had always boasted that she, 
like the United States, desired the open door in China 
The assertion was true in a measure, but with this qualifica- 
tion, that since 1842, while the door had been open, the 
vestibule, i.e., the trade routes, either by way of the Cape 
or by way of Gibraltar, Suez, Ceylon, Malacca, Singapore 
and Hongkong — the only trade routes from Europe — had 
been in the well fortified keeping of Great Britain. She 
could have effectually closed the door from Europe to Asia 
at any time, and no doubt would have closed it to any 
nation which ventured to take up arms against her, not 
merely in China, but anywhere else in the world. After 
1895 Great Britain's strategic position in the East under- 
went a relative diminution. Japan acquired Formosa, thus 
assuming potential control of the trade routes north of 
Hongkong. Germany obtained an equivalent to Hongkong 
on the Shantung peninsula which was calculated to tap the 
trade of North China as effectively as Hongkong had 
drained the trade of the South. Russia came into possession 
of a supposedly impregnable fortress at Port Arthur and 
controlled practically all the coast of Northern Asia down to 
Shanhaikwan where the Great Wall meets the sea. 
Meanwhile a new trade route in the North — the Trans- 
Siberian Railway — was in the course of construction. In 
1899 Great Britain was in a relatively weaker position in 
China than she had ever been before. It is not to be won- 
dered at that Admiral Chichester placed the Immortalite 
between the American and the European fleets on the 
morning (August 13, 1898) when the Americans moved to 
the attack on the city of Manila. Had Russia, Germany 
or France, instead of the United States, been the attacking 
party it is difficult to see how Great Britain could have done 
otherwise than oppose them. And yet England, about to 
be engaged in South Africa, could have offered only a very j 
uncertain resistance to any coalition of European powers, j 
Events thus conspired to bring the United States, Japan 



640 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

and Great Britain together. Their interests in China ap- 
peared to be identical. The closing of the door was an 
obstacle alike to all three. As for American interests, the 
Spanish-American War and the Filipino insurrection had 
created a diplomatic situation novel in American history 
since the Civil War, for which the truculent, non-coopera- 
tive policy of Cleveland and Gresham was no solution. 

Overtures for an Alliance 

When the famous Hay notes of September 6, 1899 are 
isolated from the details of the international situation in 
which they were launched they lose much of their signifi- 
cance. As a definition of policy on the part of the United 
States we may think of them as the answer of the American 
Government to certain informal proposals from British 
sources which had invited an alliance of three or four 
powers for purposes very similar to those which were 
eventually expressed in the Anglo-Japanese alliance of 
1902. 

-^ An Anglo-Japanese alliance was no new idea even in 
1899. British writers had been proposing such a relation- 
ship intermittently for a quarter of a century. The steady 
advance of Japan had convinced many even before 1880 
that the assumption of British foreign policy that Japan 
was a weak and negligible quantity while China was the 
only nation in the Far East worth cultivating, was 
erroneous.* 

* The Japan Daily Herald (November 9, 1875) notes without disapproval an 
article in the London Spectator in which it was suggested that by means of an 
alliance with Japan England might be able to engage unemployed Japanese 
samaurai in war against China over the murder of Margery. The Spectator 
remarked that England needed an island and an ally in the Far East. The 
Shanghai Courier and Gazette (reprinted in the Japan Gazette, August 5, 
1876) replied that for an ally England could count on Japan, and as for an 
island it might be possible to secure either the Lew Chews from Japan or 
Quelpert from Korea. The Japan Gazette, February 5, 1877, reprinted from 
the Pall Mall Budget an article in which the question was raised : "Are we 
laying the seeds of a valuable and sincere alliance?" The German Army 
Gazette (alluded to in the Japan Herald, October 29, 1879) had advocated an 
offensive and defensive alliance between Germany and Japan. 

Japan's unique strategic position had also not passed unnoticed by some 
Americans. De Long had felt that an alliance between Japan and the United 
States might some dav be desirable. Harris appears to have been not unmindful 
of the advantages of such an arrangement, and General Grant may have 
recognized it. 



THE REASSERTION OF THE OPEN-DOOR POLICY 641 

The abrupt change of attitude on Japanese treaty re- 
vision in 1886 was an indication of changing British policy, 
but it was so little marked that until the outbreak of the 
war in 1894 Japan suspected that England was in secret 
alliance with China. ^ When it became clear that there was 
no such pact Japanese statesmen would appear to have 
begun seriously to consider the possibility of some sort of 
an Anglo-Japanese convention. This was fully in line with 
the policy which had been suggested by Lord Hotta in 
1858 and by Viscount Tani in 1887. The Japanese halted 
between an alliance with Russia and one with England, 
On the whole Japan had less to forgive if she chose Russia, 
but she also would have more co fear. 

A new impetus to the discussion was given by the visit 
of Lord Charles Beresford, representing the Associated 
Chambers of Commerce of Great Britain, to China and 
Japan in the winter of 1898-9. Both in China and in Japai).-, 
in public addresses Lord Beresford developed at length the 
idea that the open door in China could not be maintained 
in the face of the opposition of France and Russia unless 
there was a combination of powers which were willing to 
fight to keep it open.* Beresford proposed an elaborately:i 
devised scheme for the creation of a police force in China 
in which Chinese troops would be directed by British, Ger- 

*"Our policy as declared by the Cabinet, approved by the country, and I 
am perfectly sure by every one in this room, is what is called the 'open door.' 
. . . Ministers have raved with their hands over their heads, declaring that 
they will fight for the 'open door.' " (Speech of Beresford at annual dinner 
of Shanghai Branch of China Association, reported in North China Daily News, 
November 21, 1898.) 

"Great Britain, as you know, has declared in the most public manner that 
her policy in the future with regard to the safety of her interests and trade 
and commerce, must be the policy of the open door, and as far as I can gather 
from the many kind interviews I have received in this country, the people of 
this great Empire are determined that the policy of the open door shall con- 
tinue in China so far as they are concerned. Therefore I say that our policy 
and our interests for the future are identical." Beresford then proposed, as 
he had in China, a "commercial alliance or understanding based on the prin- 
ciple of the open door." But the open door would not be of very much use, 
he believed, unless the integrity of China was maintained. Therefore he pro- 
posed an alliance of the four trading nations — Great Britain, Japan, the United 
States and Germany — "with the definite understanding on the integrity of 
China, so that the door can be kept open." To the possible objection that 
Germany might not be ready to agree to the open door, Beresford pointed out 
that Germany had already declared Kiaochow an open port. "I am suggesting 
to you nothing new," remarked the speaker. The policy was supposed already 
to exist, but he believed that an alliance was necessary to guarantee it. 
(Beresford speech before the Tokio Japanese-Oriental Association, reported in 
the Japan Times, January 22, 1899.) 



642 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

man, Japanese and American military instructors. The 
open door, he thought, would be of little use "unless the 
room inside is in order." The proposed police force would 
operate in much the same way as the Ever-Victorious Army 
under Ward and Gordon had aided in the suppression of 
the Taiping Rebellion, but Beresford's plan would have 
involved placing the Chinese troops under foreign control. 
''Why," he asked in Japan, "should not the Japanese officers 
try to put the Chinese army in order, on the understanding 
that China will keep the door open? ... I believe I per- 
sonally was the first public man in England that ventured 
to suggest that what would be for the interest of your coun- 
try and ours would be an alliance between the Empire of 
the West and the Empire of the East. (Applause.)'^ 

The Beresford speeches were an exercise in diplomatic 
kite-flying. It was officially denied in Parliament that he 
was speaking in any other capacity than as a representative 
)f the Chambers of Commerce, but it is to be noted that 
I early in 1898, before Beresford departed from England, 
jJoseph Chamberlain and others had supported a proposal 
For an alliance of Great Britain with both Germany and 
the United States. This semi-official proposal reached the 
fSrm of actual conversations with the German ambassador 
in London '^ and was even taken up officially with Mr. Hay.* 
Lord Beresford returned from the Far East by way of 
America where he made many speeches in the early part 
of 1899. That the Beresford proposals as outlined in 
China and Japan found their way to President McKinley, 
Secretary Hay and Mr. Rockhill, there can be little doubt. 
The Beresford plan accomplished nothing except the 
creation of a rumor that the Department of State had made 
a "secret alliance with England." How utterly baseless this 

*". . . I saw in the evening papers the news of the Anglo-German agree- 
ment to defend the integrity of China and the Open Door. This is the greatest 
triumph of all. Lord S. [Salisbury] proposed this to me before I left England. 
I could not accept it because I knew that unspeakable Senate of ours would 
not ratify it, and ever since I have been laboring to bring it about without any 
help, and succeeded as far as was possible for one power to do." (Hay to 

C S H , October 29, 1900, in "Letters and Diaries of John Hay," 

Vol. 3, p. 199. Printed but not published, Washington, 1908.) 

Hay subsequently expressed some doubt as to the sincerity of Germany in 
the Anglo-German convention. 



THE REASSERTION OF THE OPEN-DOOR POLICY 643 

rumor was ought to have been apparent when in April, 
1899, Great Britain entered into a convention with Russia 
by which the two powers agreed to respect each other's 
spheres of influence in the Yangtze Valley and outside the 
Great Wall, respectively. This agreement was, in effect, a 
certificate of title granted by each to the other for special 
privileges in a very large part of the Chinese Empire. A 
similar agreement between Germany and England had been 
■ made the preceding year. Affairs in China were daily be- 
coming more complicated and each new agreement was 
inimical to the United States as well as to China. It was 
quite true that England would have liked to save China 
for open trade but British diplomacy had no other resource 
than the alliance. British commerce was far better off with 
the existing low Chinese tariffs and an open door to the 
entire trade than it would have been with a part of China 
under exclusive British control and the other fragments 
closed to free commercial intercourse, but England appar- 
ently felt that she must fight fire with fire.* If England 
could not rely upon the support of the United States, and , 
apparently she could not, she was likely to adopt a policy iif 
China which would be as objectionable to the United States 
as were the policies of Russia, France and Germany. For 
America to ignore the British calls for help and at the same 
time to offer no substitute for an alliance was to drive Eng- 
land still farther along towards the partition of China and 
render more certain the dismemberment of the Empire. 

The choice before the United States in 1899 was just 
what it had been in the fifties: cooperation with Great 
Britain, or independent action. To reject an alliance and 
offer nothing in its place was a purely negative policy which 
only increased the difficulties and pitted the United States 
against not one, but all of the other powers. It is a signifi- 
cant fact that the rejection of the offer of an alliance in 
1857 had accomplished nothing for China and had resulted 

*". . . we have hitherto, at any rate^ — whatever the future may have in 
store for us — maintained the principle of the open door in that country." 
(Joseph Chamberlain at the meeting of the Wolverhampton Chamber of Com- 
merce, reported in the London Times, January 19, 1899.) 



644 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

in the eclipse of American prestige. In the settlement at 

Tientsin in 1858 the United States had no influence. 

Otherwise the Americans might have exercised a restraint 

upon the dictatorial and ruthless Lord Elgin. Again, in 

Japan the retirement of the United States from a cordial 

cooperation with England had resulted in the elimination 

of American influence in the final treaty revision. What 

it had accomplished for Japan might have been obtained 

^-""by other means; it had been costly to the United States. 

\ So now in 1899 the United States was in grave danger of 

I complete elimination from influence in China. The choice 

I was really between cooperation with such powers as had 

I similar interests and exercising upon them as much of a 

1 restraining influence as a powerful ally always possesses, 

\or futilely opposing the entire company of the powers. 

John Hay and the Open-Door Notes 

England wanted an alliance. It is unlikely that Japan 
would have hesitated to join. Probably John Hay, had he 
been at hberty to make a perfectly free choice, would have 
favored it, although the Beresford plan was in its details 
open to the gravest of objections.* Beresford's plan 
would have driven the Chinese into the arms of Russia and 
provoked a war terrible to contemplate. But an alliance to 
protect China rather than to destroy her had much to com- 
mend it. Those who talk so glibly about the superlative 
advantages of independent action in American foreign re- 
lations cannot bring to the support of their arguments any 
large array of facts gathered from American relations with 
the East since 1899. It seems highly probable that an 
alliance of Great Britain, Japan and the United States at 
that time in support of a common policy in China, such as 
Mr. Hay could have defined and the other powers would 

*"The fact is, a treaty of alliance is impossible. It could never get through 
the Senate. As long as I stay here no action shall be taken contrary to my 
conviction that the one indispensable feature of our foreign policy should be 
a friendly understanding with England. But an alliance must remain, in the 
present state of things, an unattainable dream." ° (Hay to Henry White, 
September 24, 1899.) 



THE REASSERTION OF THE OPEN-DOOR POLICY 645 

have accepted, would have been vastly preferable to the 
Anglo- Japanese alUance of 1902 which would have been 
rendered unnecessary. 

The peculiar contribution of Hay at this critical mo- 
ment was not the invention of the open door policy, for 
that was as old as our relations with China, but the direct- 
ing of a diplomatic technique by which the open door could, 
in a measure, be guaranteed without actual resort to either 
force or alliances. It was not an adequate measure but it;' 
is difficult to see how any more effective measure could' 
have been devised under the circumstances. Two factors 
contributing to the success of Hay's efforts were : the recent 
military successes of the United States and the presence 
in the East of a large expeditionary force with large reserves 
in the United States; and the natural identity of British, 
Japanese, and possibly German, interests in China. Al- 
though no shadow of treaty engagements existed, a certain 
amount of "give-and-take" had been going on between 
Japan, England and the United States for several months. 
The United States had declined to intervene in Korea after 
the murder of the queen, and had recalled an anti-Japanese 
American representative; Japan had withdrawn her pro- 
tests at the annexation of Hawaii; England had stood by 
the United States in the Spanish-American War; and now 
the American Government was making the utmost effort 
to maintain the strictest neutrality in the Boer War in the 
face of no inconsiderable anti-British and pro-Boer Ameri- 
can sentiment. The Hay-Pauncefote treaty was in process 
of negotiation, and England had expressed willingness to 
make concessions to promote the construction of an Ameri- 
can, rather than an Anglo-American Isthmian canal. In 
a word, the United States was now well embarked again 
upon a cooperative policy like that of Seward's. 

But John Hay was a very different type of man from 
William H. Seward, and when he turned to the Chinese 
question he found the model not in Seward's bellicose policy 
in Japan but in the more direct, straightforward, irenic and 
independent course of Anson Burlingame, who had set out 



646 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

to save China from the rapacity of the powers by agree- 
ment. On September 6, 1899, Hay instructed the American 
representatives in London, Berhn and St. Petersburg (Jo- 
seph H. Choate, Andrew D. White and Charlemagne Tower, 
respectively) to approach the governments to which they 
were accredited with similar though not identic proposi- 
tions concerning commercial rights in China. He pointed 
to the various verbal or written statements which had 
already been made by each power respecting freedom of 
trade for all nations on equal terms and asked for ''formal 
declarations" to the following effect: ® 

"First. [That it] Will in no wise interfere with any treaty port 
or vested interest within any so-called 'sphere of influence' or leased 
territory it may have in China. 

"Second. That the Chinese tariff of the time being shall apply to 
all merchandise landed or shipped to all such ports as are within said 
'spheres of interest' (unless they be 'free ports') no matter to what 
nationality it may belong, and that duties so leviable shall be collected 
by the Chinese Government. 

"Third. That it will levy no higher harbor dues on vessels of 
another nationality frequenting any port in such 'sphere' than shall 
be levied on vessels of their own nationality, and no higher railroad 
charges over lines built, controlled, or operated within its 'sphere' on 
merchandise belonging to citizens or subjects of other nationalities 
transported through such 'sphere' than shall be levied on similar 
merchandise belonging to its own nationals, transported over equal 
distances." 

The propositions received immediate attention.* The 
proposals were not entirely acceptable to any of the powers 
addressed. Even England wished to have exceptions made 
to meet the peculiar conditions of her own interests. It is 
notable that although the notes contemplated the applica- 
tion of the declaration to all leased territory. Lord Salisbury 
excluded the newly leased area at Kowloon from his assent. 
Great Britain really regarded this land as for all practical 
purposes a part of the ceded territory of Hongkong. It had 
been taken in the form of a lease rather than as a cession 
in order that Germany, Russia and France might not have 

♦When the correspondence was published it was agreed to omit from it 
the various notes which carried the negotiations and to include only the final 
answers. This fact has proved misleading to many who have assumed that 
only Great Britain made an immediate reply. 



THE REASSERTION OF THE OPEN-DOOR POLICY 647 

precedent for transmuting their respective leases into actual 
cessions of territory. With this single, and in principle not 
unimportant exception, England agreed to the declaration 
(November 30). Germany stated (December 4) that she 
"would raise no objection" if the other powers agreed. 
France, which was approached November 22, replied De- 
cember 16. Russia gave a very evasive declaration two 
days later. Japan and Italy, which were approached after 
the other powers, agreed promptly December 26 and Jan- 
uary 7, respectively. The news of the negotiations was 
released to the press January 3, 1900. 

What was Obtained? 

What had been obtained? Not so much as is popularly 
supposed. The United States had not secured more than 
already accrued to it under the ''most-favored-nation" 
clauses in the treaties. The preferential railway and min- 
ing privileges had in no way been disturbed. Although the 
United States expressly stipulated that it did not recognize 
the spheres of influence the replies to the notes had in 
each case afforded an opportunity of reaffirming that there 
were such spheres. There remained no good harbor on the 
entire coast of China where the American Government 
could have leased a port had it so desired. On March 20, 
1900, Secretary Hay announced that he regarded as "final 
and definitive" the declarations of the several powers that 
the open door would be maintained and that China would 
continue to collect the customs and therefore exercise the 
rights of sovereignty in the sphere of influence, but as a 
matter of fact only the partition of the Empire had been 
halted. The Hay notes, which are believed to have been 
drafted by Rockhill, were as significant in their omissions 
as in their contents. By their omissions they marked vir- 
tual surrenders which the American traders in the forties 
and fifties would probably have contemplated with little 
satisfaction. These notes have been popularly mislabeled. 
They did not secure a completely open door. But they did 



648 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

\ avert the immediate partition of the Empire, for the Powers 

\ assented to the recognition of the sovereign tax-collecting 

I rights of China. They also averted the accomplishment 

1 of any scheme of foreign-officered police such as Lord 

IBeresford had proposed. 

The Hay Notes may be best appreciated when they are 
regarded as a purely temporary expedient to meet a specific 
situation. As such they were a success. As a permanent 
measure they are less to be commended for they did not 
secure the open door as had been hoped and they did not 
avert further threatening engagements among the powers, 
notably the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. The United States 
had, in fact, missed a great opportunity to serve both its 
own interests and those of China, but the failure cannot be 
ascribed to John Hay. 

The open door policy has become so much a phrase to 

conjure with in American politics that a definition of it as 

it was in 1899 is in order. Based on sixty years of history 

and on the circumstances as well as the text of the notes the 

definition was as follows: The United States still adhered 

\ to the policy, to which Seward alone had made exception, 

\ of independent rather than allied action. This indepen- 

\ dence was not, however, to preclude cooperation. The 

lAmerican Government relinquished the right to lease a port 

m China like Kiaochow or Port Arthur for all the good ports 

were either leased or preempted by non-alienation agree- 

! ments. The United States was making no specific demand 

for the open door for investments; there was not enough 

American money seeking investment to make it worth while 

to quarrel about the preferential rights to construct rail- 

■^ ways or operate mines which had already been given to the 

\ other powers. The United States merely demanded an 
\ open door for trade in that part of China in which American 
\ merchants were already interested, viz., the area westward 
«s|rom Kwangtung on the South to Manchuria on the North. 
As for Korea, the United States was not politically or com- 
mercially interested. And as for those parts of the tradi- 
tional Chinese Empire in the extreme south where France 



THE REASSERTION OF THE OPEN-DOOR POLICY 649 

had already carved out an empire, or along the Amur where 
Russia had begun the partition of China in 1860, the United 
States had never murmured a protest. 

What the American Government would have done had 
the powers withheld assent from the Hay proposals is a 
speculative, yet interesting and important question. It 
seems clear that the United States would not have taken 
up arms either to enforce assent to the open door policy, 
or to prevent the partition of the Empire. On the other 
hand, had the dismemberment of China been started, there 
would have been a very strong sentiment in the United 
States against remaining aloof from the division of the 
spoils. Considering what John Hay had to work with, and 
what he had to work against, his must be regarded as, if not 
a famous victory, then at least an important diplomatic 
coup. The United States had not secured a great deal, as 
the next score of years revealed, but what it had obtained 
cost nothing, was accompanied by the assumption of no 
obligations, and was in return for no actual concessions. 

BIBLIOGEAPHICAL NOTES 

1. John W. Foster: "Diplomatic Memoirs," Vol. 2, p. 257. 

2. William Eoscoe Thayer: "Life and Letters of John Hay," Vol. 

2, p. 244. 

3. For the different assertions with reference to the return of Port 

Arthur to China, see "Memoirs of Count Witte," p. 84; S. A. 
Korff: "Eussia's Foreign Eelations during the Last Half Cen- 
tury," p. 57; "Eecollections of a Foreign Minister" (Memoirs 
of Alexander Iswolsky) ; Chas. Louis Seeger, translator, p. 3(3 ; 
Cordier: "Eelations, etc.," Vol 3, p. 288; "Secret Memoirs of 
Count Hayashi," pp. 51 ff. 

4. China Dispatches, Vol. 34, Mar. 13, 1873, Low to Fish. 

5. Foreign Eelations, 1883, p. 191; Cordier: "Eelations," Vol. 2, 

pp. 577 ff. 

6. Hayashi Memoirs, p. 45. 

7. "Letters from the Kaiser to the Czar," p. 48. 

8. Thayer: "John Hay," Vol. 2, p. 221. 

9. The Hay Notes and correspondence are printed in For. Eel. 
1899, pp. 128 ff. under the caption "Correspondence Concern- 
ing American Commercial Eights in China." Moore's "Digest," 
Vol. 6, pp. 534 ff., gives all the essential material. 



CHAPTER XXXIII 

THE UNITED STATES AND THE BOXEE INSUKRECTION 

Excluding all details of the Boxer affair extraneous to 
a study of policy, we may outline our theme in four ques- 
tions: What happened? What did the American Govern- 
ment desire? What methods were employed? What were 
the successes and failures? 

The Boxer Insurrection 

The disturbances in China which culminated in the 
Boxer affair had been approaching for many years. For 
three quarters of a century the alien Manchu dynasty had 
been losing the loyalty and confidence of the Chinese peo- 
ple. The Chinese entertained no special dislike for the 
Manchus as aliens or as conquerors, but the corruption and 
weakness of their government made them objectionable as 
rulers. In return for the taxes, which were steadily increas- 
ing, the government did not maintain peace within the 
Empire nor was it successful in protecting China from the 
attacks of other nations. Brigands, pirates and revolution- 
ists continually disturbed the orderly conditions necessary 
for trade. The humiliating defeats at the hands of foreign 
powers, 1839-42, 1856-60, 1894-5, to which were added 
numberless other impositions and exactions by foreigners, 
costing the Empire large sums of money and some losses of 
territory, revealed the Manchus as incapable of effectively 
discharging the trust which had been reposed in them. 
After 1853 the Manchu dynasty owed its power in China 
not to its own vitality or the loyalty of its subjects, but 
rather to the fact that the foreign powers had willed that it 

650 ' 



UNITED STATES AND THE BOXER INSURRECTION 651 

remain. Otherwise the Manchus probably would not have 
survived the Taiping Rebellion. 

The Chinese people do not appear to have had any- 
conspicuous hatred of the foreigner as such. They liked the 
foreign trade for it was profitable. They hated the for- 
eigner only because his presence in the Empire increased 
their taxes, disturbed their peace, and because his extra- 
territorial privileges gave to him a privileged social, religious 
and economic position. He was able to evade many of the 
onerous local taxes which fell the more heavily upon the 
Chinese. Roman Catholic converts, and to some slight de- 
gree Protestant converts also, passed under the protection 
of foreign powers. After 1860 the French missionaries went 
through the country and demanded the return of church 
property which had been sequestered more than two cen- 
turies ago and had long since passed into the possession of 
innocent proprietors who supposed that their titles were 
valid. The demands of the bishops and priests for majes- 
terial rank was a constant irritation. The attitude of the 
converts was often insolent and intolerable. Likewise the 
opium trade, while unchallenged by the populace, aroused 
the resentment of the few who could justly claim public 
spirit and patriotism. Meanwhile the prompt and often 
unjust demands for reparations and for the settlement of 
claims, which were collected locally even though they were 
paid from Peking, again touched the Chinese people on their 
most sensitive nerve, their money, and aroused resentment. 
The officials and the gentry whose privileges were most 
threatened by the anti-Manchu movements were not slow 
to direct the unrest of the people against the foreigners. 

In a word, both the Manchu government and the for- 
eigners were steadily inviting and stimulating the antago- 
nism of the Chinese. One wonders how the latter endured 
as much as they did. 

The powers sustained the Manchu government not be- 
cause they respected it, but because they did not dare to 
take the risk of permitting successful revolution which 
would have resulted either in the separation of the Empire 



652 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

into fragments, or the establishment of some new vigorous 
central authority which, while restoring order and promot- 
ing the development of the country, would likewise have 
been able to set up an effective opposition to the encroach- 
ment of the powers. To the latter it was most profitable 
to sustain a weak government which they could intimidate 
and control. The policy of the foreign governments was to 
crowd the Chinese to a compliance with every foreign de- 
mand, but to stop just short of creating the causes for suc- 
cessful revolution. A weak, disintegrating China made pos- 
sible the continuance of extraterritoriality, an absurdly low 
tariff, and an hundred kindred privileges such as the Japa- 
nese, who were eluding the grasp of the powers, were more 
and more able to escape. Probably the most effective ally 
of China was the mutual jealousies of the powers. 

Had the powers realized that Japan would be victorious 
in the war of 1894-5 and that as a result of the Chinese 
defeat the Chinese people also would slip for the moment 
from the indirect control, presumably they would have in- 
tervened and driven the Japanese back to their island 
homes. What they had expected was a victory for China 
which would cripple Japan and restore the latter to their 
power. But the treaty of Shimoneseki revealed the Manchu 
government enfeebled beyond all hope of recovery. It also 
showed Japan preparing to assert herself not merely in the 
Korean peninsula but also elsewhere on the mainland of 
Asia. 

The weakness of the Empire, the growing ambitions of 
Japan, the political rivalries of Europe and the overflowing 
coffers of European money-lenders, created conditions 
favorable for a stampede among the powers. The leasing 
of ports, the acquirement of spheres of influence, the non- 
alienation compacts followed. The Manchu government 
was being treated with derision by the powers, and the 
Chinese people saw themselves the present and future vic- 
tims. They would have to pay. They were therefore ready 
to turn upon the Manchus not because they were Manchus 
but because they were collecting taxes under false pretenses. 



UNITED STATES AND THE BOXER INSURRECTION 653 

They were rendering poor government and surrendering 
their domain. The Chinese were also ready to turn against 
the foreigners, not because they were foreigners, but because 
they were secondarily the disturbing influence. 

Following the Sino-Japanese War the powers, had they 
been united in a desire to help China, might have given sup- 
port to a reform movement which would have resulted in a 
better government and set the Chinese people on the path of 
advance. But the powers were utterly divided. Only the 
United States wanted a strong China and the United States 
was after all only slightly interested. The Empress Dow- 
ager therefore seized the opportunity. She, also, was not 
conspicuously anti-foreign, but she was shrewd enough to 
see that her best hope of sustaining the Manchu dynasty 
and her own influence was to exterminate or expel the for- 
eigners. This program, successfully carried through, would 
restore the vanished prestige of her government. The 
powers, by their jealousy of each other and by their unvar- 
nished greed, played directly into her hand by furnishing 
her each day with fresh illustrations of rapacity. The for- 
eigners, from the Parsee opium trader up the scale to the 
most unselfish and untiring Christian missionary, owed their 
lodgment in the Empire to the "naked force" of some for- 
eign vessel of war which had never been out of call since 
1842. Between the muzzle of these guns and the people at 
whom they were aimed were a multitude of foreigners, many 
of them seekers after peace, honest and kindly in their deal- 
ings, but no amount of uprightness could conceal the guns 
which supported them and which were each month becom- 
ing more numerous. The people, ignorant and incredibly 
superstitious, were goaded to desperation. While the for- 
eigner remained aloof, the Empress Dowager, "Old 
Buddha," skillfully diverted from herself and her dynasty to 
the foreigner the wrath which in spite of its horrible mani- 
festations was none the less the proof of the innate vitality 
of the Chinese people. Thus the Manchus escaped a few 
years longer. The foreigners became the victims. Collec- 
tively they richly deserved their fate; but as so often hap^ 



654 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

pens the individuals who paid the terrible price were in 
equal measure innocent. 

The important events of the Boxer insurrection, which 
have been chronicled by a multitude of writers, may be tabu- 
lated with brevity.^ On September 22, 1898, following a 
''hundred days" of unintelligent and frantic reform under a 
rash young Emperor, the Empress Dowager resumed her 
place as captain of the Chinese junk of state. The follow- 
ing winter the Legations at Peking found it wise to bring up 
small companies of guards from the foreign fleets. The total 
number of guards that winter was 141, of which the Ameri- 
cans supplied 18. In the spring the guards retired and it was 
not thought necessary for them to return the following 
winter, but the rapid increase of hostility to foreigners and 
the murder of several of them elsewhere in North China 
alarmed the foreign community and May 31, 1900, a much 
larger force representing eight nationalities was brought up 
from Tientsin.* Meanwhile the Boxer bands were closing 
in upon Peking and were being merged in the Imperial 
troops. The attitude of the Chinese Government became 
obviously hostile and on June 10, a relief expedition from, 
the foreign vessels of war, 475 strong, under Admiral Sir 
Edward H. Seymour, set out to afford the foreign com- 
munity in Peking additional protection. The next day a 
member of the Japanese Legation was murdered and on the 
14th the Legations were definitely cut off from communica- 
tion with the outside world. On the 17th the forts at Taku 
were taken by the joint action of the foreign fleets, the 
Americans not participating; three days later the Imperial 
troops at Peking opened fire upon the Legations and the 
German Minister, von Ketteler, was shot in the street. The 
Seymour expedition had encountered resistance and had 
been compelled to return to Tientsin. The viceroys and 
governors of the Yangtze and Southern provinces held aloof 
from the insurrection and for the most part protected the 
foreigners, thus confining the conflict to the North and espe- 
cially to Shantung and Chihli. 

*There were 458 foreigners actually engaged as military in the siege ; 56 
were American. 



UNITED STATES AND THE BOXER INSURRECTION 655 

After the capture of the Taku forts the Chinese engaged 
in a systematic attack upon the foreign community at Tien- 
tsin, and on July 14 the city was captured by the joint 
efforts of the foreign forces, the American forces participat- 
ing. On July 30 the Tientsin Provisional Government, a 
civil organization under the direction of the military, was 
set up. 

The Peking relief expedition did not actually start from 
Tientsin until August 4. It comprised about 19,000, of 
which 2,500 were Americans with Major General Adna R. 
Chaffee commanding. Germany was unrepresented in this 
expedition; it was composed chiefly of Russians and Jap- 
anese. There was no allied command, each nation operating 
independently yet with a semblance of conference between 
the commanding officers. The Russians betrayed a lack of 
good faith and revealed suspicious ulterior motives. The 
Legations were relieved on August 14 at the end of one of 
the most thrilling episodes in modern history. Although 
the American flag was first on the walls of the Tartar city, 
the British preceded the Americans into the Legation area. 
On August 24 Li Hung Chang and Prince Ching were for- 
mally appointed as Chinese plenipotentiaries. About two 
months later Count Waldersee, a German Field Marshal, 
with the approval of all the foreign governments, assumed 
the duties of Generalissimo of the foreign forces in China, 
and thus supplied a nominal unity to the military govern- 
ment, the relation of which to the. diplomatic body was never 
very clearly defined. On December 24 the foreign repre- 
sentatives presented to the Chinese Government a joint note 
which contained their demands as a basis for peace. Two 
days later these demands were accepted and the negotiations 
for the terms of the protocol were begun. There were many 
delays in the perfecting of this convention, due chiefiy to 
the inability of the powers to agree among themselves, and 
it was not signed until September 7, 1901. 

With this rapid survey of events in mind, let us 
pass to a review of American policy at the end of the 
century. 



656 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

The Desires of the American Government 

When the true nature of the insurrection became known 
the American Government naturally shared to the fullest 
extent in the common desire of the powers to effect the 
rescue of their Legations, to make sure of reparations for 
the damage done and for the expense of their naval and 
military forces, but on the question of the correction of the 
conditions which had made possible the insurrection, the 
agreement among the powers was less marked. 

The American Government had already defined the 
general principles of its political and commercial policy in 
the Hay notes, but now something more specific was re- 
quired. Secretary of State Hay addressed a circular note to 
the powers on July 3, which became the base-line for all 
subsequent American policy. 

"In this critical posture of affairs in China it is deemed ap- 
propriate to define the attitude of the United States as far as the 
present circumstances permit this to be done. We adhere to the policy 
initiated by us in 1857 of peace with the Chinese nation, of further- 
ance of lawful commerce, and of protection of lives and property of 
our citizens by all means guaranteed under extraterritorial treaty 
rights and by the law of nations. If wrong be done to our citizens we 
propose to hold the responsible authors to the uttermost accounta- 
bility. We regard the condition at Peking as one of virtual anarchy, 
whereby power and responsibility are practically devolved upon the 
local provincial authorities. So long as they are not in overt collu- 
sion with rebellion and use their power to protect foreign life and 
property, we regard them as representing the Chinese people, with 
whom we seek to remain in peace and friendship." ^ 

The reference to the policy of 1857 is illuminating, and 
recalls the continuity of American policy. Hay did not 
conceive himself to be the originator of new principles. 
Great Britain, France, Russia and Japan had all been at war 
with China; the United States, never. But the kernel of 
the policy in 1900 was to forestall a declaration of war and a 
military movement by one or more of the Powers against 
the Chinese Empire. "Anarchy" at Peking might be dealt 
with locally and was susceptible of settlement by repara- 
tions, but war against the Empire would probably involve 



UNITED STATES AND THE BOXER INSURRECTION 657 

permanent occupation or the surrender of territory. A 
declaration of war against China by any one of them would 
quite probably have been followed in a short time by hostili- 
ties between rival powers. Hay, greatly aided by the jeal- 
ousies of the other powers, was entirely successful in this 
phase of his policy. It cannot be asserted that Hay was 
solely responsible for no declaration of war against China, 
but it seems fair to rate the circular note of July 3 as an im- 
portant contribution to the peaceful solution of the Chinese 
problem. It- was unaccompanied by any compromising 
acquiescence in the programs of other powers such as in 
1857 had rendered the policy of Buchanan and Cass so 
futile and hypocritical. 

Hay elaborated in a few carefully phrased sentences the 
general policy of the United States adding both definiteness 
and scope to what had been stated in the notes of the pre- 
vious year: 

". . .the policy of the Government of the United States is to seek a 
solution which may bring about permanent safety and peace to China, 
preserve Chinese territorial and administrative entity, protect all 
rights to friendly powers by treaty and international law, and safe- 
guard for the world the principle of equal and impartial trade with 
all parts of the Chinese Empire." 

Such phrases as "territorial and administrative entity" and 
"all parts of the Chinese Empire" reveal a certain vigor and 
precision of purpose which were lacking in the Open Door 
Notes. One has a feeling that since September 6, of the year 
previous, American policy in China had been taking shape 
and stiffening. 

Hay's broad purpose as revealed in the course of the 
Protocol negotiations was substantially as follows : to main- 
tain harmony among the Powers and by united action to 
secure as quickly as practical the removal of the foreign 
military forces from Chinese territory; to secure adequate 
reparations and adequate punishments for the responsible 
instigators of the insurrection and yet to prevent the imposi- 
tion upon China of injustices which would be fruitful of new 
antagonisms and sow the seeds for an even more formidable 



658 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

popular uprising; and to secure such administrative and 
fiscal reforms as would make China in the future the best 
possible market for international trade. He viewed China 
as the weak link in the international political and commer- 
cial system. Enlightened self-interest dictated that the 
powers should unite to strengthen this link. The American 
policy in 1900 has since been clothed with a garb of altruism 
which it could not properly claim. Its motive was not con- 
spicuously benevolent, but its object was, nevertheless, 
highly beneficent. 

The rescue of the foreigners at Peking and the cessa- 
tion of atrocities having been accomplished without a decla- 
ration of war, the next pressing questions were the punish- 
ment of the guilty and the fixing of the form and amount of 
reparations. Germany brought forward the proposal that 
the foreigners should not only designate the guilty but also 
become their executioners. The American Government 
opposed such a plan. Russia, in harmony with its estab- 
lished policy of conciliating China, supported the United 
States. In the end the views of the United States and 
Russia partially prevailed. The demands for capital pun- 
ishment were eventually reduced from ten to four, many 
names were removed from the lists, and lighter forms of 
punishment were indicated for others. The execution of the 
penalties was carried out by the Chinese Government. 
Likewise the American Government opposed further puni- 
tive expeditions after the occupation of Peking and Tientsin. 
Here the policy of the United States was unsuccessful and 
Mr. Hay's purpose was foiled. The punitive expeditions of 
some of the powers, notably Germany, Russia and France, 
exhibited to the Chinese the worst phases of Caucasian char- 
acter and made the white man in many localities of China 
an object of terror which still lingers. 

In the determination of the amount of the indemnity the 
American proposals likewise failed. The Department of 
State reached the tentative conclusion that the most that 
China could pay without permanent damage to the Empire 
was about $150,000,000, an estimate which was subse- 



UNITED STATES AND THE BOXER INSURRECTION 659 

quently increased to $200,000,000. It was believed that any 
larger amount "would not only entail permanent financial 
embarrassment on the country, but might possibly result in 
either international financial control, or even loss of ter- 
ritory." The United States was willing to accept bonds 
issued at par, bearing 3 per cent interest and running for 
thirty or forty- years. The American claims were fixed at 
the maximum lump sum of $25,000,000. The other Powers 
had scant sympathy for such a proposal and the indemnity 
was eventually placed at $333,000,000. It would perhaps 
have been even larger had it not been for the opposition of 
the United States. The bonds were issued at par and bore 
4 per cent. 

Russia would have preferred that the Chinese indemnity 
be guaranteed by the powers rather than paid in bonds 
issued directly by the government. This proposal met with 
the immediate opposition of the powers which wished to 
protect China as much as possible from subsequent Euro- 
pean interference, but Mr. Hay at length agreed that he 
would support the objectionable guaranty plan if measures 
were taken to reduce the amount of the indemnity. To this 
the powers would not consent. The American Government 
opposed the suggestion for the creation of an international 
fortress at Peking or elsewhere, and would not support the 
proposal that the powers jointly forbid the importation into 
China of arms, ammunition or material for their manufac- 
ture. In a word the United States opposed all measures 
which were calculated to weaken the resistance of China in 
future conflicts with encroaching powers. 

Russia, which was suspected of having already entered 
into a secret agreement with China that she would use her 
influence in China's favor in return for the actual or virtual 
cession of Manchuria, just as in 1860 she had obtained the 
left bank of the Amur as a reward for her supposed influence 
in persuading the French and the British armies to retire 
from Peking, suggested that the whole question of the 
indemnity be referred to the Hague Tribunal. The United 
States supported this proposition, but the other powers 



660 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

would not listen to it. However, they did agree to the sug- 
gestion of Mr. Hay that the indemnity be fixed in a lump 
sum to be divided among the powers subsequently by 
mutual agreement. This arrangement protected China from 
the pressure of individual powers and made it impossible for 
any power to commute its financial claim into a demand for 
territory or special privilege. For the sake of further shield- 
ing the Empire from the rapacity of the powers the Ameri- 
can Government would have liked to see the entire negotia- 
tions for the Protocol transferred from Peking to some 
foreign capital. This proposition received no support ex- 
cept from Russia which doubtless would have greatly 
profited from such an arrangement. 

The next most important point in the negotiations was 
the proposal to increase the customs dues to provide more 
ample funds for the payment of the huge indemnity. 
France and Russia desired to have the tariff, which was at 
that time only about 3.17 per cent effective, increased to 
10 per cent. Mr. Hay suggested (April 11) that there 
should be a thorough revision of the commercial treaties, 
following the signing of the Protocol, and that in return for 
certain long desired reforms in Chinese domestic taxation, a 
new tariff be made in which the duties be increased to from 
5 to 15 per cent according to the character of the goods, 
the scale being graded according to whether the articles were 
necessities or luxuries.* Mr. Rockhill was very cautious in 

♦Paraphrase of telegram, Hay to Rockhill, April 11, 1899 : "... the 
essential object of the revision of consular treaties is to favor Chinese financial 
stability and promote ability to buy in any market and to exchange native 
products, wherever produced, on equal terms with all nations. Inequalities of 
likin should be removed, and fixed rates for all China should be scheduled 
according to the importance and value of imports — some higher than now and 
others lower, as they can safely stand. Trade with the interior is made 
speculative and uncertain by the present irregular likin. Customs duties 
should be scheduled anew. Besides discriminating against cheaper necessaries, 
the present uniform rate yields inadequate revenue. Five to fifteen per cent, 
according to the character of the goods, would equalize trade without partiality 
or burden, and, as trade penetrates the interior, would yield steadily increasing 
revenue. Application to the whole of China of the open door is required to do 
this. Equal opportunity should be had by all trading nations to sell through- 
out the Empire. Lower duties should be attached to imports tending to 
develop Chinese productiveness. Agricultural implements and simpler manu- 
facturing machinery should be especially favored." 

"The Chinese can gain prosperity so as to buy what they do not produce 
only by developing native productions. Special trade favors to any Power 
on the ground of reciprocity, territories, occupation, or spheres of influence 
should be guarded against by stringent favored-nation clause now and for the 
future. It is necessary to secure increased access to interior markets. . . ." * 



UNITED STATES AND THE BOXER INSURRECTION 661 

committing the American Government to raising the tariff 
because he recognized on the part of the nations like Russia, 
which were least interested in the trade, a disposition to 
make large the indemnities and then to shift the burden of 
payment upon the trading nations by increasing the tariff. 
He also was unwilling to separate the tariff question from 
that of internal fiscal reform whereas the non-trading na- 
tions were not unwilling to see the continuance of the inter- 
nal abuses which had always been such an embarrassment 
to the trader. China would, indeed, have been better off 
with a $150,000,000 indemnity and an only 5 per cent effec- 
tive tariff than with a $333,000,000 indemnity and a 10 per 
cent tariff, but what was needed was a genuine fiscal reform. 
Mr. Rockhill specified as compensating advantages for 
treaty revision: abolition of likin on imports and exports, 
including transit pass duty ; right of foreigners to reside and 
do business throughout the Empire ; revision of inland navi- 
gation rules; creation of a mining bureau and good regula- 
tions; strict adherence to principle of equal opportunity to 
people of every nationality; the opening of Peking as a 
treaty port; and the adoption of measures for the improve- 
ment of the river approaches to Shanghai, Tientsin and 
Newchwang.'* 

When the stupendous indemnity had been decided upon, 
and when Mr. Rockhill encountered general opposition to 
thorough reforms Hay cabled (June 21) that the American 
Government was opposed to raising the revenue above 5 
per cent effective.* At the same time he instructed Rockhill 
to refrain from opposing the proposition that a 10 per cent 

*Tliat the opposition of Mr. Hay to a 10 or even 15 per cent tariff was 
due to the fact that the indemnity had been raised to so high a figure and the 
likin was not abolished is perfectly clear from the correspondence. 

John A. Kasson, special commissioner plenipotentiary, to Hay, March 2, 
1901 : "It would appear to be the better opinion that the duties on imports 
must be raised to at least 15 per cent ad valorem in lieu of the present rate. 
The calculations must, of course, be based upon the amount of the indemnity, 
now unknown. Assuming this is not to exceed .1)200,000.000, and further 
assuming that the Powers will accept the bonds of China instead of compelling 
her to sell these bonds to raise the indemnity money in the open market with 
a further loss of capital . . ." ° 

John Foord, Secretary of the American Asiatic Association, to Hay, January 
2.5, 1901 : "The American Asiatic Association, recognizing the financial neces- 
sities of the Chinese Empire, has no objection to offer to the proposed increase 
of duties on foreign imports. The suggestion which, according to Sir Robert 
Hart, was formulated last spring by the special commission appointed to 
consider the subject of tariff revision, is deemed a reasonable one. This was 



662 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

tariff be reserved for future discussion if the withdrawal of 
American objections would aid in bringing the Protocol 
negotiations to a close. Meanwhile Great Britain refused 
to consider a 10 per cent tariff. In the Protocol it was 
determined that the tariff be raised to 5 per cent effective, 
on the condition that all existing ad valorem duties be 
changed to specific duties, the average value of merchandise 
for the years 1897, 1898 and 1899 being taken as the basis 
of estimate. Peking^ was not given the status of a treaty 
port. The American demand for the opening of the entire 
Empire to trade did not commend itself to those who were 
most familiar with the conditions because of the extraterri- 
torial status of foreigners. It would have been highly unjust 
to China to force her to admit foreigners as freely as Mr. 
Hay had contemplated, while they were exempt from 
Chinese law and so much removed from effective control by 
their own governments. Mr. Rockhill was, however, able 
to have specified in the Protocol that the river approaches 
to Tientsin and Shanghai be improved under a plan by 
which the Chinese and the foreigners jointly bore the ex- 
pense. Through the jealousy and short-sightedness of the 
powers an opportunity had been lost to do much towards 
setting China on a firm foundation which would in the end 
have been as profitable for the powers themselves as for the 
Empire. Meanwhile the United States had acquired the 
reputation of having opposed the increase of Chinese tariffs 
which is a partial and quite inaccurate statement of the 
facts.* 

The Protocol, as signed, stipulated the following points : 

to the effect that the import duty should be fixed at 10 per cent plus 5 per 
cent transit dues, payable simultaneously, coupled with the total abolition of 
all other taxes on such imports forever after and everywhere." " 

*Two other minor proposals made by the United States were lost. Mr. Hay 
suggested that it would be well to stipulate that in the reorganization of the 
Tsung-li Yamen upon which all the powers were agreed, only an official speaking 
some Western language be appointed to conduct the foreign relations. This 
proposal was unwise as Rockhill immediately pointed out, for it would have 
eliminated from the direction of foreign affairs all the ablest Chinese. Mr. Hay 
also suggested that China be made to indemnify Chinese Christians for wrongs 
to their persons and property. Conger, although an ardent friend of the 
missionaries, did not believe such a policy wise. It would have reopened the 
question of the French protectorate of Catholic missions in its most objec- 
tionable form. These minor proposals betray the fact that Secretary of State 
Hay, although directly supervising the negotiations by telegraph, actually 
was not at all well informed as to general conditions in China.' 



UNITED STATES AND THE BOXER INSURRECTION 663 

(I) apology to Germany for the murder of Baron Ketteler, 
and the erection of a memorial to him at the place where he 
was shot; (2) punishment of Chinese officials responsible 
for the insurrection; (3) apology to Japan for the murder of 
Sugiyama, chancellor of the Japanese Legation; (4) suspen- 
sion of official examinations in all cities where foreigners 
were attacked or murdered; (5) erection of expiatory monu- 
ments in foreign cemeteries which had been desecrated; 

(6) China to forbid for two or more years the importation of 
arms, ammunition and materials used in their manufacture ; 

(7) indemnity of 450,000,000 Haekwan taels and a 5 per 
cent effective tariff; (8) reservation of the Legation Quarter 
at Peking under the exclusive control of the Legations with 
the right to make it defensible; (9) razing of forts at Taku 
between Peking and the sea; (10) the occupation by the 
foreigners of certain points, thirteen in number including 
Tientsin, as a security of open communications to Peking; 

(II) publication of certain edicts tending to prevent renewal 
of Boxer propaganda; (12) China to agree to the amend- 
ment of commercial treaties and to the Pei-ho and Whangpu 
conservancy projects; (13) abolition of the Tsung-li Yamen 
and the creation of a Ministry of Foreign Affairs; (14) 
evacuation of Peking, with exception of Legation guards on 
September 17, 1901. 

Independent or Concurrent Action 

In the sixty years of official American relations with the 
Far East, the fundamental American purpose had been 
definite, consistent and unvarying. The United States 
sought the open door for American trade. But the methods 
employed had been subject to many changes. What the 
Americans asked for and what they obtained at Peking in 
1900-1 is therefore of less significance than the diplomatic 
methods employed. 

There were three possible stages of independent or iso- 
lated action: absolute neutrality; intervention in favor of 
Asia; and mediation. Likewise there were three stages of 



664 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

cooperation: concurrent yet separate action; joint action; 
and an alliance with some one or more foreign powers. Any- 
one of these might conceivably become a means for main- 
taining the open door and Asiatic integrity. In the course 
of its diplomatic relations in Asia the United States had 
been forced to consider each of these methods and had em- 
ployed more or less energetically every one of them except 
the last. In 1840, at the outbreak of the Anglo-Chinese 
War, some of the Americans had proposed joint naval action 
with England, France and Holland against China. Others 
suggested mediation. The United States adopted neutrality. 
In 1853 at the opening of Japan and during the troubles at 
Shanghai, the American representatives had rejected coop- 
eration and followed an absolutely isolated course. Four 
years later, at the time of the revision of the Chinese treaties 
and of the making of the commercial treaties with Japan, 
the American Government, officially rejecting both isolated 
and joint or allied action, adopted a concurrent policy which 
in effect involved cooperation in all peaceful measures. 
During the Seward administration cooperation was the slo- 
gan. In Japan it was carried to the point of joint military 
action and a similar policy on an even more extended scale 
was contemplated in Korea. Then followed a period of 
non-cooperation. The opening of Korea and the revision of 
the Japanese treaties had been accomplished by isolated 
action. Both concurrent and joint action in the Sino-Jap- 
anese War had been rejected, as had also armed or allied 
intervention in favor of Korea. The Hay notes of 1899 
may be classified in two ways. They represented isolated, 
diplomatic intervention in favor of China and against 
Europe ; but they were also the expression of an underlying 
cooperative policy which fell only a little short of joint action 
with Japan and Great Britain against Russia. They were 
as near to an Anglo-Japanese-American alliance as the 
United States was able to go. Their underlying spirit was 
the farthest possible removed from that of Gresham in 1894. 
Of these possible methods, which was the United States 
to choose at the outbreak of the Boxer trouble? It could 



UNITED STATES AND THE BOXER INSURRECTION 665 

not remain neutral between the East and the West, for 
American lives and American property had been attacked. 
It could not intervene against Europe — not directly. An 
offer of mediation would have been interpreted as an indi- 
cation of American weakness and an encouragement to the 
Manchu government, just as the failure to support the 
Italian demands for a leased port in 1899 had been construed 
as an encouragement to China. Extreme isolated action 
would be futile: some form of cooperation was necessary, 
but an alliance was out of the question. Only concurrent or 
joint action was practical. 

"Act independently in protection of American interests 
where practicable," telegraphed Hay to United States Min- 
ister E. H. Conger June 8, 1900, "and concurrently with rep- 
resentatives of other powers if necessity arises." ^ Two days 
later he amplified this with a second message : "We have no 
policy in China except to protect with energy American 
interests, and especially American citizens and the Legation. 
There must be nothing done which would commit us to 
future action inconsistent with your instructions. There 
must be no alliances." In the circular of July 3d to the 
powers Hay defined the method again: "The purpose of 
the President is, as it has been heretofore, to act concurrently 
with other powers; first, in opening up communications 
with Peking and rescuing the American officials, mission- 
aries and other Americans who are in danger; secondly, in 
affording all possible protection everywhere in China to 
American life and property; thirdly, in guarding and pro- 
tecting all legitimate American interests; and fourthly, in 
aiding to prevent a spread of the disorders to the other 
provinces of the Empire and a recurrence of such disasters." 
It will thus be seen that between June 8 and July 3 the 
American Government had come to see the futility of exclu- 
sively independent action, even in the protection of Ameri- 
can interests, and was prepared for cooperation — for a larger 
degree of cooperation, probably, than the jealousies of the 
other powers made it possible to achieve. Thus while 
eschewing the commitments of alliances or their equivalent, 



666 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

in the face of a great crisis, the United States forsook the 
timidities of the past and announced itself as ready to lead 
in cooperation. 

The word "concurrent" is the key to the interpretation 
of American policy at this time. This word had a long his- 
tory. It first appeared in the discussions of the early fifties 
which preceded the adoption of the policy of 1857. The 
earlier American policy has been primarily obstructive to 
England. But it was seen that an independent obstructive 
policy might actually prove to be less obstructive to a dis- 
memberment of China than would a cooperative policy. 
Concurrent action, therefore, came to mean cooperation for 
the purpose of restraining England and France. It utterly 
failed in 1858 owing to the ineptitude of the American rep- 
resentative, but the idea was taken up by Seward and used 
with some success. It succeeded in China but failed in 
Japan because there was lacking a man of Anson Bur- 
lingame's caliber to carry it out. The policy was sound but 
it required an able executive. A concurrent policy was the 
one to which Mr. Hay returned in the summer of 1900 and 
to insure its success he dispatched his trusted aid, W. W. 
Rockhill, as Commissioner (technically, Special Agent) to 
China in the latter part of July when the fate of the Lega- 
tions and of Minister Conger was still in doubt. There does 
not appear to have been any serious differences of opinion 
between Conger and Rockhill, but when two men ride a 
horse one must ride behind and early in 1901 Mr. Conger 
found it desirable to ask for permission to return to the 
United States, leaving Mr. Rockhill as plenipotentiary to 
carry out the negotiations and sign the Protocol for the 
American Government.* 

"While we maintained complete independence," stated 
Mr. Rockhill in making his final report, "we were able to act 
harmoniously in the concert of powers, the existence of 
which was so essential to a prompt and peaceful settlement 
of the situation, we retained the friendship of all the nego- 

*It is interesting to note that in the settlement of the Boxer affair the 
Senate had no part. Neither Rockhlll's appointment as Special Agent nor the 
Protocol required the approval of the Senate, 



UNITED STATES AND THE BOXER INSURRECTION 667 

tiation powers, exerted a salutary influence in the cause of 
moderation, humanity and justice, secured adequate repara- 
tion for wrongs done our citizens, guaranties for their future 
protection, and labored successfully in the interests of the 
world in the cause of equal and impartial trade with all 
parts of the Chinese Empire." ^ Complete independence, 
yes ; but not the sort of independence which had been main- 
tained in Korea or the independence of President Cleveland. 
There was military and naval cooperation, and there was 
diplomatic "give and take" in which the American Govern- 
ment most of all showed a willingness to make concessions 
for the sake of securing harmony of action and a real con- 
cert of the powers. 

At the signing of the Protocol the diplomatic grouping 
of the principal powers remained about what it had been for 
the preceding two years. Great Britain and Japan stood 
together and were separated from the United States only by 
the greater extent of their political and commercial interests 
in China. All three stood opposed to Russia which was sup- 
ported consistently by France. Germany was playing a 
dubious game, now encouraging Russia and then making a 
convention with England to oppose her. Even in 1901 it 
probably would not have been impossible to form a conven- 
tion of Great Britain, Germany, Japan and the United 
States to safeguard China from every assault if only the 
American Government could have been counted on to invest 
its fair share of military and naval support. The United 
States was in a position of potential leadership which it 
allowed to slip from its grasp primarily because the Ameri- 
can people misread the events of the three preceding years. 
They supposed that their influence had been due to their 
independence and isolation, whereas it had been brought 
about by concurrence and cooperation. But more funda- 
mental as a cause for the failure of the United States to 
grasp the opportunity to continue its beneficent work for 
Asia, was the fact that the American people did not prize 
the influence Mr. Hay and his collaborators had secured for 
them.i« 



668 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

1. There are no books on the Boxer Insurrection or on the Protocol 

which can be recommended as a substitute for the official docu- 
ments. Foreign Relations for 1900, and the Appendix volume 
for 1901 (also published as Sen. Doc. 67 :57-l) containing the 
Rockhill Correspondence, and Notes on China, Aug., 1900^ — 
War Dept. Document 124, Publication XXX — are the primary 
sources. Moore's "Digest," Vol. 5, pp. 476 ff., contains an 
excellent summary but does not make excerpts from corre- 
spondence not previously published. Paul H. Clements : "The 
Boxer Rebellion, a Political and Diplomatic Review" (Studies 
in History, Economics and Public Law, Columbia Univ., Vol. 
LXVI, No. 3) is excellent so far as it goes, but is deficient in 
background and not discriminating in references to earlier 
history. For a chronicle of events, H. B. Morse: "Intern. Rel. 
of the Chinese Empire," Vol. 3, is recommended. For adequate 
bibliography, see Clements. Stanley K. Hornbeck: "Con- 
temporary Politics in the Far East," chap. 13, and elsewhere, 
is an admirable interpretation which is especially valuable for 
the understanding of the Protocol in the light of more recent 
history. 

2. Rockhill Correspondence, p. 12. 

3. Ihid., p. 368. 

4. Ihid., p. 171. 
6. Ihid., p. 210. 

6. Ihid., p. 217. 

7. Ihid., pp. 349, 45. 

8. For. Relations, 1900, p. 143. 

9. Rockhill Corres., pp. 6-7. 

10. Thayer's "John Hay," Vol. II, chap. XXVI, "The Boxer Ordeal 
and the Open Door," sheds some light on the general phases of 
Mr. Hay's policy, but for some reason, possibly from an excess 
of caution on the part of the biographer, is singularly lacking 
in answers to many of the important details of the negotia- 
tions; so also are the "Letters and Diaries of John Hay," 3 
vols. Printed but not published, Washington, 1908. 



CHAPTER XXXIV 

PEKSONALITIES AND PRINCIPLES 

The Consular and Diplomatic Service 

American relations with Asia in the nineteenth century 
were so largely personal and individual that the Americans 
who made the contacts assumed a transcending importance. 
At no time during the century did the Chinese or the Ko- 
reans become travelers, and while the Japanese manifested 
an extreme desire to go abroad and study, nevertheless for 
the great mass of the people what knowledge of the United 
States was obtained came through the American official and 
unofficial representatives in Japan. To the inhabitants of 
Eastern Asia the Government of the United States was 
what the American diplomatic and consular officers repre- 
sented it to be. The personalities and personal character 
of the diplomatic and consular representatives became a 
legitimate object of study. 

The American consular service throughout the century 
presents a picture over which one would wish to draw the 
veil. The system of merchant consuls continued in China 
without change until 1854 when they were replaced at the 
five ports by others whose only legitimate emoluments were 
$1000 a year for judicial services under extraterritoriality, 
and part or all of the fees of their office.* It was hardly a 
change for the better. The older merchant consuls had 
been of the type of the merchant prince. While it was true 
that they smuggled opium and manipulated the powers of 
their office, sometimes to the prejudice of their competitors, 
they did take pride in their position, and towards the 

♦Merchant consuls were reintroduced a few years later at unimportant 
points in spite of the protests of the Chinese Government. 

669 



670 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

Chinese they maintained the same benevolent, if patroniz- 
ing, attitude which characterized their business relations. 
The men who displaced them were often appointed from the 
lower ranks of political "hangers-on" in the United States 
and were set down in strange places where the cost of re- 
spectable living ranged upwards from three or four thou- 
sand dollars a year. Consulates were not provided and the 
allowances for rent and for clerical help were meager. At 
Canton, Shanghai and later at Yokohama they handled 
large sums of money for, in addition to the fees of the office, 
there was the fund for the relief of distressed seamen and 
the estates of intestate deceased fellow citizens. To the per- 
sonal temptations which accompany residence in a foreign 
land where public sentiment is of slight support to personal 
character there was the constant temptation to peculation. 
The theory of their government was to make the consular 
system support itself by the fees it collected, and the pre- 
vailing theory of the occupants of office was to gather in as 
much as the probably brief tenure of office would permit. 
The fee system made this especially easy.^ 

We know that there were consular officers who rendered 
honest and efficient service even under these adverse condi- 
tions, but it would appear, even from the printed reports of 
consular inspectors, that the average grade of honesty and 
efficiency was deplorably low. In concluding his report 
covering Asia and South America in 1872 Special Inspector 
DeB. Randolph Keim stated: 

"It will have been seen that there was not a single consulate at 
which a complete set of record-books from the beginning as required 
by the regulations, was to be found. . . . Almost every consulate had 
some defects in its history, owing to the incompetency, low habits, 
and vulgarity of some of its officers during the endless round of 
evils incident to official rotation. Abuses had been committed in the 
collection of fees; in the exercise of judicial powers; in the adjust- 
ment of the business affairs of American citizens; in the settlement, 
where permitted, of the estates of intestate American citizens dying 
abroad ; in selling the American flag ; in 'running-out' * ships ; in 

*" Running-out" ships was a practice by which the consul connived with a 
ship captain in forcing a crew shipped in an American port to desert in an 
Asiatic port where a new crew of Asiatic sailors could be obtained at a very 
great reduction in wages. The American sailor, forced by the abuse of the 
captain to desert, lost the wages due him for the outward voyage, thus effecting 
a second saving for the owners. 



PERSONALITIES AND PRINCIPLES 671 

discharging seamen; in establishing American settlements abroad; in 
issuing illegal passports ; in countenancing shipping-masters ; in tax- 
ing Chinese emigrants. Indeed, the most important feature of my 
investigations was the iniquity displayed by consular officers, since 
the act of 1856 particularly, in defrauding the government and grasp- 
ing gains from various outside sources." ^ 

The best that can be said for the consular system at that 
time in Asia is that every instance of extreme dishonesty 
can be matched with one of even more extensive malfeasance 
from consulates in some other quarter of the globe, and one 
may also remember that those were the days of scandals in 
Washington over the payment for Alaska, the Pacific Mail 
Subsidy, and the Credit Mobilier. Inspector Keim expressed 
the opinion that the consular irregularities reached their 
highest point among the appointees of the Buchanan admin- 
istration, but it is to be noted that at that early day many 
of the possible avenues of graft were still relatively unex- 
plored and the methods of the dishonest consul underwent 
many refinements in the following forty years. At the end 
of the century the American consular establishments in 
Asia were still a stench which succeeding administrations 
had been singularly loath to correct, and the long urgent 
reforms did not appear until the second Roosevelt term.* 
While honest American trade suffered from this pro- 
cession of pilfering, low-living and inefficient officials, it was 
American relations with the native peoples which suffered 
most. The American Government had demanded the ex- 
emptions of extraterritoriality and then sent the off-scour- 
ings of the "spoils system" to become the agents of American 
law and justice. In the act of May 16, 1848, Congress 
authorized the establishment of consular courts by which 
the consuls were enabled to hear and determine civil cases 
where the debt or damage did not exceed $1000 and to try 

* Third Assistant Secretary of State. Herbert H. D. Pierce, reported in 
1904, after a tour of consular inspection : "Unfortunately, beset by the 
temptations wbich are rife in the East, it has sometimes happened that some 
of our consular officers, finding their salaries inadequate to meet the constant 
drain upon their resources, have yielded to this temptation and, under the cover 
of such protection as our unfortunate system of partial compensation by fees 
affords, have tnken advantage of it to extort unwarranted charges for 
services of an unofficial character, and in other instances have employed their 
official positions to increase their incomes improperly, thus bringing the office 
into contempt." ^ 



672 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

and punish criminal offenders where the fine did not exceed 
$100 or imprisonment for 60 days.'* The law was to be that 
of the United States, supplemented by the "common law, 
and the law of equity and admiralty," to which might be 
added "decrees and regulations" having the force of law, 
which the minister was authorized to promulgate with the 
approval of such consuls as were accessible. For the more 
important cases, the consul was required to invite some 
fellow citizens to sit with him in the hearing of the case, and 
appeal was possible to the minister, and through him in 
some cases, to the United States circuit court in California. 
The effect of the arrangement was that the consul might 
combine in himself all the functions of government, legis- 
lative, judicial and executive. He was a member of the 
legislature, judge, jury, prosecuting attorney and police 
officer all in one. He was never selected for his legal train- 
ing. If, in addition to all this, the consul was a dishonest 
man or one who nourished that contempt for the colored 
races which the white man often acquires when he goes to 
Asia, imagination fails to grasp all the possibilities which 
were invested in his person for the creation of ill feeling and 
hatred among the Orientals who were so miserable as to fall 
in his path. When one encounters even today the sporadic 
outbursts of distinctly anti- American, as well as anti-foreign 
feeling, in Eastern Asia, the recollection of this shameful 
page of past history will do much to explain and extenuate 
the hatred for Americans which still lingers in many an 
Oriental breast. 

One turns with relief from the consular to the diplomatic 
service. From the days when John Quincy Adams in his old 
age was suggested as the most suitable first Commissioner 
to China and Edward Everett at the Court of St. James was 
actually appointed to the post, it was recognized by the 
American Government that its diplomatic representatives in 
the East ought to be men even above the grade of those who 
were sent to many European capitals. During the century, 
not counting those who were appointed and declined, and 
omitting the various charges d'affaires, there were thirty-five 



PERSONALITIES AND PRINCIPLES 673 

American diplomatic representatives in China, Japan and 
Korea. Peter Parker, George F. Seward, H. N. Allen, Edwin 
Dun and W. W. Rockhill were selected from those who had 
already held lower positions in the diplomatic service in the 
East; Alexander H. Everett had a previous and extended 
diplomatic career in Europe. A few typical ''shirt-sleeves" 
diplomats like Richard B. Hubbard ^ in Tokio found their 
way to these high appointments, and the picture of Charles 
E. De Long, revolver bulging from his belt, driving ex-Secre- 
tary Seward through the streets of Tokio behind a pair of 
ponies and cracking his whip over the backs of scurrying 
pedestrians is not edifying,^ but there were very few such 
ministers and at the most not more than three instances of 
conspicuously weak character, one of these being a dipso- 
maniac.'^ On the other hand Cushing, Perry, Harris, Bur- 
lingame, Young, Bingham, Denby and Rockhill represented 
the best of contemporary American life. Although it was 
customary for each new administration to make new ap- 
pointments. Judge Bingham served at Tokio for thirteen 
years, and Colonel Denby served slightly longer at Peking 
and had the distinction of being in two Republican as well 
as in two Democratic administrations, the latter being one 
in which he was first appointed. In general the quality of 
diplomatic representation in the East rose and fell with the 
character of the administration and the quality of the 
appointees in the Department of State. On the whole the 
legations at Peking and Tokio compared favorably with the 
department to which they were responsible. 

A word, in passing, ought to be added in regard to the 
American naval officers who also represented their govern- 
ment to the peoples of Eastern Asia. Usually they were an 
exceptionally fine set of men, sustaining a higher average, 
perhaps, than those of any other class. The naval officers 
were feared by the consuls whose delinquencies they re- 
ported, and not always welcomed by the civilian ministers 
who resented their frequently lordly ways, but they had a 
fine regard for the honor of the flag under which they 
served and rarely disgraced it. 



674 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

The Contributors to American Policy 

In bringing our study to a close it is well to repeat that 
American policy in Asia has been an accretion which was 
built up from no exclusive single source. It did not spring 
full-grown from the mind of any individual, nor was it care- 
fully projected from a planning-board or group. In this 
respect it was utterly unlike the foreign policy of Japan, of 
Great Britain, and of the European powers. Contributions 
came from three different sources: from the American rep- 
resentatives in Asia; from the Department of State or the 
administration in Washington; and, in a single instance, 
from Congress in response to a popular demand. We may 
review briefly the nature and significance of each one of 
these classes of contributors. 

Every item in American policy in Asia as we find it at 
the end of the century was first the personal contribution of 
some individual representative of the government in Asia. 
To this statement there are no exceptions. It is equally 
notable that every item of policy was, in principle, on record 
before 1870. After that date came only sifting, integration, 
elaboration, and the application to specific situations. 
Throughout the century the fundamental purpose of the 
United States remained unaltered: the American Govern- 
ment demanded most-favored-nation treatment ; demanded 
it from China, Japan and Korea, and demanded it also 
from Western powers which sometimes threatened to close 
the door of equal opportunity in regions where the American 
merchant was interested. 

What methods should be employed to maintain the 
open door? Ought the United States to depend solely on 
treaties or ought it to acquire territory as Great Britain, 
Russia and France were doing? Again, ought the American 
Government to adopt a cooperative policy or was it wiser 
to keep to political isolation? The drama of the second half 
of the century revolves around the discussion of these differ- 
ing methods of realizing a single purpose — most-favored- 
nation treatment. 



PERSONALITIES AND PRINCIPLES 675 

Caleb Gushing, in harmony with the general instructions 
of Daniel Webster, devised a plan by which the United 
States would depend solely upon the force of treaties and 
the strength of international law. Commodore Perry had 
less confidence in legal documents and earnestly recom- 
mended the acquisition of territory as a base of operations 
from which the door might, in case of necessity, be forced to 
remain open. Burlingame followed Cushing, while Parker 
sided with Perry, and carried forward a policy which, while 
rejected by his superiors, was taken up in principle by 
Seward. At the end of the century we find the two schools 
of thought both represented and merged in the McKinley 
administration to such a degree that we may not with 
certainty separate those who held one and those who advo- 
cated the other. Cushing's policy was still held to be sound 
in theory but in practice it had proved inadequate. Perry's 
method had been premature at its inception but was now 
found to meet the facts as they had developed and to be 
not exclusive of the Cushing policy. If McKinley inclined 
towards the school of Perry and Seward, certainly John Hay 
found himself more at ease with Cushing and Burlingame. 

To what extent the men at the end of the. century were 
conscious that they were following in the footsteps of pred- 
ecessors we do not fully know, but in speculating upon this 
question we may be guided by the fact that the American 
Government in its foreign relations possesses a continuity 
which is not always appreciated by its commentators. Ad- 
ministrations come and go; Secretaries of State and of the 
Navy pass through the departments to which they are 
appointed, and with them come — in the past probably more 
than is likely in the future — new appointments to subordi- 
nate positions, but the new administrations cannot eradicate 
the records of the past and they ignore them at their peril. 
Policies as well as international law and diplomatic practice 
are built up layer by layer and while American foreign 
policies have undergone some changes and even reversals in 
the generations which are past, those changes were neither 
abrupt nor revolutionary. As concerns the Far East certain 



676 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

unchanging geographical, or slowly changing industrial and 
political facts have made a channel within the boundaries 
of which American policy must contain itself. It it were 
true that the McKinley administration adopted policies 
without knowing that they were returning to old ones it 
would also be true that two sets of men removed a genera- 
tion from each other discovered the same major facts and 
found themselves forced to similar conclusions. That indi- 
vidual American representatives of the forties and fifties 
should have so clearly forecasted the conclusions of their 
successors at the end of the century, and now, is a tribute to 
the quality of their political sense. 

Twice within the century a Secretary of State or a 
President picked up the Far Eastern question and set it 
forward with important personal contributions. That these 
contributions were indeed personal is only too apparent from 
the records. When the Senate gave its approval of the con- 
ventions of 1864 and 1866 with Japan it was still preoccu- 
pied with war-time affairs, and it is not evident that there 
was any intelligent appreciation of the issues involved or of 
Seward's way of handling them. One finds it difficult to 
believe that Seward would have found in Congress sufficient 
support for his proposed Korean policy. Seward's policies 
were peculiarly personal to himself and did not even have 
the unqualified support of his own representatives in Peking 
and Yedo. McKinley likewise had the advantage of a war- 
time Congress, and even then he had to coerce Congress to 
secure the approval he needed for his Philippine policy. 
Congress handled the Philippines more as a domestic than 
as a foreign question. The adroit John Hay was able to 
accomplish his policy in China by eliminating the Senate 
from its consideration and then by giving the policy an 
aspect of independence which concealed its true cooperative 
nature. 

Once Congress intervened in Far Eastern affairs and 
seized the initiative. The Asiatic immigration policy be- 
longs to Congress and arose directly out of the people who 
were being touched on the bare nerve of their industrial 



PERSONALITIES AND PRINCIPLES 677 

and social life. Congress steadily forced the hand of the 
Presidents and of the Secretaries of State. This policy 
formed the only really national item in our relations with 
the Far East for it was the only one which was adopted after 
full discussion and investigation in Congress. Unquestion- 
ably it represented the will of the people. But it is signifi- 
cant that the question was discussed as a purely domestic 
issue and was settled in utter and brutal disregard for 
foreign relations and existing treaties. The settlement of 
this question is an illustration that the American system of 
government presents no insuperable obstacles to the control 
of foreign policy by the people where the economic and 
social interest is sufl&cient, and is also a warning that other 
items of foreign policy are liable to initiation or revision by 
similar measures. That the American people are prone to 
resolve all questions into partisan and domestic issues and 
are deficient in a sense of cooperative responsibility in inter- 
national affairs is evident. This fact becomes somewhat 
disquieting when one turns to the political situation in the 
Far East and notes how necessary a cooperative policy 
has become. 

The Cooperative Policy 

When closely scrutinized it appears that the United 
States never during the century actually retired from the 
cooperative policy first timidly proposed in the fifties and 
then followed with so much vigor in the sixties. When the 
American Government withdrew from close cooperation 
with Great Britain, France and Russia, it had already 
entered, without any formality or documentary pledge, into 
cooperation with and support of Japan. The United States 
did not retire from cooperation ; it merely changed partners. 
The corollary of the open door was the policy of promoting 
an Asia strong enough to be its own door-keeper. When 
England and France revealed a disposition to use the power 
of a cooperative policy to repress and weaken Asia the 
United States withdrew from cooperation with them and 
sought the accomplishment of its purpose by cooperation 



678 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

with an Oriental power. Then, in the McKinley adminis- 
tration, when Great Britain had come to adopt the Amer- 
ican contention that a strong Japan was advantageous to 
the trading nations, the United States resumed its cooper- 
ative pohcy with England. The principles of American 
policy were entirely consistent from the days of Seward 
onward. 

Only the cooperative policy stood the test of time. In 
the necessities of the case this must have been so. An iso- 
lated policy committed the American Government to one of 
two courses; either to retirement when American interests 
were threatened, or the defense of those interests with suffi- 
cient force to protect them. An isolated policy in Asia tends 
inevitably either to a surrender of most-favored-nation 
treatment or a defiance of all comers. It is essentially bel- 
ligerent. Commodore Perry was entirely consistent when, in 
addition to his non-cooperative policy, he advocated the 
establishment of protectorates over half a dozen pieces of 
Asiatic territory. If the United States were to pit its 
strength against the world in the Pacific it must fortify its 
position after the most approved military manner. 

That the cooperative policy suffered from mishandling 
in the following forty years there can be no doubt. While 
charging the other Powers with bad faith and with wresting 
the power of the policy to serve purposes which were not in 
the interest of all the cooperating powers, we may properly 
confess the American share in the wreck of general coopera- 
tion. Seward approached dangerously close to bad faith and 
he sometimes used the policy not as a statesman but as a 
sharp politician. The withdrawal of the United States from, 
cooperation with the European powers in Japan found an 
excuse in the brutal conduct of Sir Harry Parkes, but the 
withdrawal was petulant and probably unnecessary. All 
that it accomplished in bringing about a change in British 
policy favorable to the promotion of a strong, enlightened 
and prosperous Japan, probably could have been better ac- 
complished had the American Government continued the 
cooperative policy and exercised a more diplomatic influence 



PERSONALITIES AND PRINCIPLES 679 

upon the British Foreign Office. Judge Bingham proved 
himself to be a fine type of American during his long service 
in Tokio but he was neither a statesman nor a diplomat. 
The American policy in Korea also, while not properly open 
to the charge of having betrayed the Koreans, was certainly 
lacking in political sagacity and was most deficient in its 
contempt for general cooperation. Statesmanship was no- 
where apparent. 

A cooperative policy is not a trust company to which a 
government may consign the management of its foreign rela- 
tions and then feel free to bestow its executive and diplo- 
matic posts as badges of honor upon men who are merely 
loyal Republicans or sound Democrats. American interests 
in the Far East unquestionably suffered, but the fault was 
not so much in the cooperative policy as in the fact that 
the American representatives and the American administra- 
tions were less capable than those with which they were 
cooperating. Fatality to American interests always fol- 
lowed the appearance of an incompetent American diplomat 
or a provincial Secretary of State. It was true at Tientsin 
in 1858, in Japan after Harris left, in China after Bur- 
lingame's retirement. The wreck of the cooperative policy 
in the East in the nineties was due as much to American 
ineptitude as to European jealousies. 

It was the utter wreck of the cooperative policy which 
made it necessary for the United States to retain the 
Philippines and one may at least question whether the 
annexation of Hawaii would have taken place had not Japan 
betrayed an inclination to encroach upon the islands. Only 
the reestablishment of cooperation between Great Britain, 
Japan and the United States prevented the dismemberment 
of the Chinese Empire. In the resumption of cooperation in 
1899 the United States suffered no loss for it was ably rep- 
resented. 

The only unknown quantity making a cooperative policy 
a gamble for the United States is the quality of American 
representation. But the uncertainties of American politics 
are always a liability to be reckoned with, and as disastrous 



680 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

to an isolated as to a cooperative policy. The history of 
American policy in the nineteenth century, and there does 
not appear to be any different testimony from more recent 
history, indicates that American interests in Asia, which are 
best served by the open door and the development of strong 
Asiatic states, fare best under a cooperative policy in which 
the American Government is ably and energetically repre- 
sented. That under such a policy the United States will 
attain the full measure of its desires is unlikely, but under 
an isolated policy it will certainly obtain even less both for 
itself and for Asia. The American people delight to honor 
Seward and Hay both of whom reached this conclusion, but 
perhaps even yet they have not grasped the secret of their 
statesmanship. The cooperative policy in Asia has not been 
lifted to a place in American foreign policy by the side of 
the Monroe Doctrine where it is above the reach of issue- 
hunting campaign managers. 

In conclusion, we repeat that the tap-root of American 
policylmtsia is most-favored-nation treatment. An .iiiii: 



tude of self-righteousness is neither becoming nor justified. 
American policy is not philanthropic ; it is not, in its motive 
and history, benevolent ; but it is beneficent, for the United^ 
States is so situated that American interests in Asia are be st 
promoted by the growth of strong, prosperous and enlight- 
ened Asiatic states. Indeed it is diflficult for an American 
to believe that the repression or weakening of any part o f 
Asia is a benefit to any power. The United States is com- 
mitted to its policy by geographical, economic and political 
facts, and in the same measure is also bound to a policy oCIT 
cooperation with all powers which sincerely profess a similar , 
purpose. '""^ 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

1. The documentary and pamphlet literature on the consular system 
is voluminous. The student is referred to the index to Foreign 
Relations, and to the following documents : A Report to the 
Hon. George S. Boutwell, Secretary of the Treasury, upon the 
Consular Service of the U. S. A. by DeB. Randolph Keim 
(Washington, 1872) ; the Keim Report is also given in S. Ex. 



PERSONALITIES AND PRINCIPLES 681 

Doc. 7:41-3; Report to the Hon. John Hay, Secretary of State, 
upon a tour of consular inspection in Asia, by Herbert H. D. 
Pierce (Washington, 1904) ; also H. Misc. Doc. 31 -.45-2 (Part 2) 
which contains the documentary evidence as to the conditions 
in the consular service of China, with special reference to 
Shanghai up until 1877; this document should be studied with 
H. Eept. 134:45-3, Investigation of Geo. F. Seward. Seward 
while serving as minister at Peking was charged with corrup- 
tion in his previous service as Consul General at Shanghai. 
The Committee on Expenditures in the State Department in 
the House presented a bill of impeachment against Seward 
which was referred (June 4, 1879) to the Committee on 
Judiciary from which it never reappeared. The following year 
Seward was replaced at Peking by James B. Angell. Chester 
Lloyd Jones : "The Consular Service of the United States, its 
History and Activities" (Univ. of Pa. Series in Political 
Economy and Public Law, No. 18, Philadelphia, 1906) is a 
good general summary of the development of the entire consular 
system, but it contains only passing references to Asia. 

2. Keim: Eeport, p. 183. 

3. Pierce: Report, p. 15. 

4. Moore's "Digest," Vol. 2, pp. 613 ff. ; S. Ex. Doc. 72 :31-1 (the 

report of John W. Davis). 

5. Hubbard was so unwise as to write a book after his return from 

Tokio. It is a very revealing document. Richard B. Hubbard : 
"The United States in the Far East, or. Modern Japan and the 
Orient" (Richmond, Va., 1899). 

6. William Seward's "Travels Around the World," p. 89. 

7. Foulk Papers (New York Public Library, Manuscripts Div.). 



CHAPTER XXXV 

N®TES ON BIBLIOGEAPHY 

Quotation or exact citation with attached bibliograph- 
ical reference where statements of fact are, or may be, mat- 
ters of dispute have been uniformly utilized in this study. 
Other quotations have been introduced to give the reader 
the peculiar flavor of the sources quoted, for in the deter- 
mination of policy prejudices and personal feelings were- 
fully as influential as facts. A bibliographical list is ap- 
pended which, while abbreviated in form, is sufficient for 
the identification of the source. In this list will be found 
some titles of little known contemporary sources throwing 
light on various phases of domestic history or on American 
foreign relations outside of Eastern Asia. 

The attempt to supply a complete and critical bibliog- 
raphy of the subject has been abandoned because it cannot 
be done satisfactorily except at great length. Such a bib- 
liography would be most satisfactory were it the result of 
collaboration rather than of purely individual selection. 
Many general works of reference to which the student nat- 
urally turns for general information, and even many histories 
bearing directly upon the subject are not mentioned in the 
bibliographical citations. Some comments of a general 
nature at the end of this chapter will give the reason for 
this omission. The appended list, containing as it does every 
title cited in the text, does constitute a selected bibliography 
of the sources which the writer has found sufficiently accu- 
rate to justify quotation. The citation of a book for a 
specific reference does not however constitute an endorse- 
ment of the book as a whole. In general books on the Orient 
are very uneven in quality. 

The writer has had exceptional privileges of access to 

682 



NOTES ON BIBLIOGRAPHY 683 

the archives of the Department of State and it has seemed 
that the most valuable personal contribution he can make 
towards the critical bibliography which is so sorely needed, 
is in the way of comparison of these records with the printed 
documents and with such other manuscripts or printed 
sources as run parallel to the government archives. This 
contribution is offered in payment of the debt of gratitude 
due to those writers who have already pioneered in the field 
and have published bibliographies. 

The primary documentary source for American affairs in 
the East Indies and Eastern Asia before 1844 are the con- 
sular letter books in the Department of State. The Canton 
Letters, however, begin approximately with 1800 and while 
the Calcutta Letters begin in 1793 they are very incomplete 
and the student must look elsewhere for the bulk of the 
material. The Miscellaneous Letters of the Department of 
State archives, for which there is a calendar in the Depart- 
ment, contain some correspondence from merchants engaged 
in trade and throw light on the relations of such men as 
Astor, Girard, and the Providence and Boston merchants to 
the Embargo, War of 1812, appointment of consuls, etc. 
The first volume of Canton Letters contains some mis- 
placed correspondence with reference to the Columbia and 
Lady Washington expedition to the Northwest Coast, and a 
packet of letters and documents, unbound, in the State 
Department Library, gives further information about the 
Northwest Coast trade. 

The most complete printed contemporary sources of in- 
formation for the period preceding 1800 are: Shaw's Jour- 
nals, published in 1847, which not only include Shaw's 
reports to John Jay, but also supply much additional infor- 
mation as to the circumstances under which the East India 
trade was initiated, and the manner of conducting it in the 
East; the O'Donnell correspondence in Diplomatic Corre- 
spondence 1783-9, Volume 3; Spark's "Life of John Led- 
yard" ; the biographical sketches of Elias Haskett Derby and 
others in Hunt's "American Merchants"; the "Letters of 
Phineas Bond," and William Milburn's "Oriental Com- 



684 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

merce," the editions of 1813 and 1825 being unlike and both 
valuable. 

Thes^ printed sources are supplemented by many scat- 
tered manuscripts. The Library of Congress contains the 
Ingraham Journal of the Voyage of the Hope, a long letter 
from Thomas Randall to Alexander Hamilton and other less 
important items. The Hudson Collection in the New York 
Public Library contains papers relating to the building of 
the ship Massachusetts for Samuel Shaw in 1784, and the 
Bancroft Collection in the same library contains copies of 
some of the Phineas Bond letters as well as reports of other 
British agents which are of the utmost importance in deter- 
mining the initial East India trade of Philadelphia, Balti- 
more, New York and the Rhode Island ports. 

The documentary sources in the Massachusetts libraries 
are given in S. E. Morison's incomparable "Maritime His- 
tory of Massachusetts" and K. S. Latourette's "Early Rela- 
tions between the United States and China" gives an exten- 
sive though not complete list of contemporary sources both 
manuscript and printed. 

The Canton Consular Letters from 1800 to 1840 were 
published in part in H. Doc. 119:26-1 and H. Doc. 71:26-2. 
While no important information bearing on the question 
before Congress, namely, the proposed treaty with China, 
was omitted from these documents the unpublished ma- 
terial is of the greatest historical interest, and contains 
many shipping reports and comments which throw much 
light on early American economic and industrial develop- 
ment. The Kearny Correspondence, published in full in 
S. Doc. 139:29-1, is an indispensable introduction to the 
Cushing negotiations, and in part supplies the deficiency 
due to the fact that the consular correspondence beyond 
1840 was not published. 

The Edmund Roberts papers are deposited in the 
Library of Congress. They must, however, be supple- 
mented by the Roberts papers, unbound, in the library of 
the Department of State, and by the Batavia Consular 
Letters. The Chinese Repository for the period contains 



NOTES ON BIBLIOGRAPHY 685 

some important comments on the Roberts Mission. Ed- 
mund Roberts' own book is of very slight value for the 
historian owing to the editorial supervision it received from 
the Department of State. 

The published consular correspondence for the period is 
supplemented by Paullin's "Early Voyages of American 
Naval Vessels in the Orient," which is based on the archives 
of the Navy Department, and contains full quotations and 
citations. Seybert, Pitkin and Milburn supply much sta- 
tistical and other information, but the best sources for the 
conditions of American trade are found in the Parliamen- 
tary Papers. While many statements were made in the 
various Parliamentary investigations which tended to ex- 
aggerate the growth of American trade, these reports are, 
on the whole, more reliable than the incomplete figures in 
the Consular Letters, and are more comprehensive than 
those of Seybert or Pitkin. 

The Caleb Cushing Correspondence is published with 
the omission of no important details in S. Docs. 67 and 
58:28-2. 

Between 1844 and 1853 very little of the diplomatic or 
consular correspondence was published. The Chinese Re- 
pository in a measure supplies this gap and is also a valuable 
supplement to all the published documents during the years 
(1832-51) of its publication. For the years 1828-61 the 
Hasse Index of U. S. Documents Relating to Foreign Affairs 
is a certain and invaluable guide which renders unnecessary 
the compilation of complete lists in this volume. 

From 1853 to 1869 practically all of the diplomatic cor- 
respondence of the American representatives in China and 
Japan was published. The Department of State apparently 
had no compunctions about publishing material which con- 
tained or implied a criticism of other powers. The volu- 
minous and highly entertaining as well as instructive cor- 
respondence of Humphrey Marshall for 1853 was printed 
almost without editing or the omission of the many con- 
fidential dispatches. This and the correspondence of his 
successors, McLane, Parker, Reed and Ward, more than 



686 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

2500 pages in all, constitute a primary source not merely 
for American but for British and French history in China. 
These volumes have been uniformly ignored by the British 
and French historians of the period and yet so important 
is their contribution that the entire history of the period 
may well be rewritten from them. These documents, to 
which may be added S. Wells Williams' Journal of the Reed 
and Ward Missions, have an unique value which gives them 
precedence over the British Blue Books. The latter were 
published while the British Government was being sub- 
jected to searching criticism, and they were obviously de- 
signed to justify a policy already determined upon. The 
American documents were not edited to meet a criticism 
and were designed to plead no case. They record events, 
month by month, as they occurred and are an historical 
source of surpassing value. They are the birth records of 
American policy. 

The Diplomatic Correspondence, begun by Seward, 
when compared with the manuscript dispatches, reveals a 
continuance of the policy to supply the fullest possible 
information on the relations of the United States to China 
and Japan. Only a small amount of editing took place. 
The China dispatches contain relatively little of importance 
which was not printed. The same may be said for Japan 
with the exception that the information relative to the 
convention of 1866 was very defective, and much of the 
negotiation with reference to Korea, having been entirely 
verbal, was omitted entirely. 

The Townsend Harris correspondence was published 
only in fragments but the deficiency has been largely sup- 
plied in Grifiis' "Harris" which was based on Harris' Journal 
and contains extensive excerpts. The Harris Papers are 
now deposited in the Library of the College of the City of 
New York, and there are in addition to them some Harris 
papers in the New York Public Library. Griffis did not 
have access to the latter papers but they contain nothing 
which would modify greatly the facts already published. 
The present writer has added in the text certain facts not 



NOTES ON BIBLIOGRAPHY 687 

hitherto known relating to the appointment of Harris to 
his various posts. The Pruyn papers to which Treat had 
access and from which he printed many excerpts would 
appear to be very similar in content to the dispatches in 
the Department of State. 

The Burlingame private papers do not appear to have 
been extensive and Williams' biography is complete except 
for certain details of the negotiations in Europe which were 
reported in more or less private letters to Seward and are 
bound up in the first volume of Notes from the Chinese 
Legation in the Department of State. 

Some additional correspondence for the period covered 
by Seward's term of office appear in the documents report- 
ing the investigations of 0. B. Bradford and George F. 
Seward, in the document supplying information on the 
Ward-Hill claim against China, and in the reports relative 
to the return of the Chinese and Japanese indemnities. 

Parts of the missing documents with reference to Sew- 
ard's negotiations over Korea have been printed in the text, 
and more completely by the writer of this book in the 
American Historical Review. 

A change of policy with reference to the publication of 
diplomatic correspondence by the Department of State ap- 
pears after 1870. The dispatches were subjected to an in- 
creasing amount of editing. The reason may be found in 
the complaints of the American representatives in Peking 
and Tokio. The full publication of their dispatches had 
become a source of extreme embarrassment. The English 
newspapers, most of them bitterly and vituperously hostile 
to Americans, seized upon the volumes of Foreign Relations 
with avidity and published long extracts, with com- 
mentaries. For several years thereafter the ministers them- 
selves were permitted to designate the dispatches which 
they were willing to have published, and then a system of 
editing was introduced into the State Department which 
was very conservative and erred only on the safe side. The 
effect of this system was to render the succeeding volumes 
of Foreign Relations of decreasing value to the student of 



688 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

American policy in the East. One is not safe in making 
jany generalizations based on the published dispatches in 
Foreign Relations from 1875 to 1894. But the relations of 
the American Government to the Sino-Japanese War was 
;exhibited with no important omissions, and the Boxer cor- 
respondence is in no way misleading. 

The voluminous documents relating to the Philippine 
question are of a different character. They are fully and 
critically discussed by LeRoy. In general we may note that 
they resemble in character the British Blue books on the 
Elgin Expedition and the Treaty of Tientsin. They were 
published to justify a policy and to influence public opinion 
and as such must be used with the greatest caution. They 
represent the first instance in the 19th century in Ameri- 
can relations with the East where government documents 
were used as polemics to justify a policy already adopted. 

The manuscript or printed material running parallel 
with the diplomatic records for the period since 1868 is 
scanty. The Shufeldt papers are deposited in the Navy 
Department Library and the Foulk papers, containing 
letter-press copies of practically all his reports and diplo- 
matic dispatches and some personal notes and correspond- 
ence (1884-7) with reference to Korean matters, are in the 
New York Public Library. These two collections constitute 
an independent documentary record of American relations 
with Korea down to 1887. They are of the utmost impor- 
tance and are another block of material which materially 
changes a chapter of American history. Perhaps no phase 
of American history has been more mishandled and more 
wrested to serve partisan purposes. 

Other manuscript material relating to this period is 
known to exist but so far as the writer is aware it has not 
been made generally available to students. The John 
Russell Young papers covering the years 1882-5, provided 
they are not lost, will yield a record of surpassing value for 
affairs in both China and Japan and also in Korea. The 
Young dispatches contain the best portraiture of Li Hung 
Chang at that period that the writer has seen. Likewise 



NOTES ON BIBLIOGRAPHY 689 

the Young papers will probably throw light on the inter- 
national significance of the tour of General Grant in the 
East which, so far as American policy is concerned, marked 
an epoch. It is to be hoped that in time the literary records 
of more recent Americans, many of them still living, may 
find their way into libraries. 

American historical literature is not rich in the biog- 
raphies and published letters of American representatives 
in the East. Many of the Americans were not literary men 
and even where the records are ample it would appear that 
there has been a regrettable lack of interest in their pub- 
lication. There are in American historical literature very 
few volumes comparable for historical importance and 
readability, with Oliphant's "Elgin Expedition," Walrond's 
"Letters of Lord Elgin," Michie's "Englishman in China," 
or Lane-Poole's "Life of Parkes." Williams' biography of 
Burlingame, the "Life and Letters of Williams," the 
Williams Journals of the Perry, Reed and Ward missions, 
and Foster's "Diplomatic Memoirs" only partially meet the 
need. The books of Young, Holcombe and Denby, while 
valuable, leave much to be desired. The result of this 
poverty of American historical literature and the general 
ignorance of the vast mass of government documents for 
the period before 1860 has been that American relations 
in the East have been very inadequately treated by his- 
torians and also very badly misrepresented. One cannot 
refer to a single history of the period which is not exposed 
to the charge of grave misstatements of fact, and equally 
serious errors of interpretation. 

Some few works by American and British writers have 
had such a currency and have been so widely used and 
generally cited as authorities that a few critical comments 
upon them may not be out of order. 

H. B. Morse's "International Relations of the Chinese 
Empire," three volumes, is an invaluable chronicle of events 
in China. It is also an important interpretation by one 
who made an honest effort to be just and fair to all, and had 
a liberal view-point. Mr. Morse's distinguished career iu 



690 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

the "Chinese Maritime Customs," and his close association 
with Sir Robert Hart gave him access to invaluable sources 
of information. These three volumes are an exposition of 
the point of view of a liberal Englishman in China. The 
second and third volumes reflect in a pronounced way the 
views of Sir Robert Hart. All the volumes have, however, 
two very serious deficiencies. By confining the study to 
China with some attention to Korea, and by excluding 
Japan, they present a distorted picture, for it was the policy 
of all the Powers to regard the Far or Extreme East as a 
unity. The second deficiency is due not to the limitation 
of the theme but to the use of sources. In the first volume, 
which brings the narrative down to 1860, and which covers 
the period in which American policy had its birth, Mr. 
Morse draws upon only seven American sources, most of 
which are not contemporary, and none of which are ofiicial 
records. The result is a volume in which the British Blue 
books and other British sources supply the information and 
control the conclusions. It is an extremely unreliable guide 
to the study of American policy. The two later volumes 
are less deficient in their use of American sources, and yet 
American interests are slighted and misrepresented. 

The writings of S. Wells Williams demand special at- 
tention. As a source book of Chinese history the ^'Middle 
Kingdom" still occupies a unique position. The abridg- 
ment of this monumental work by the author's son in "A 
History of China," shares the merits of the larger work. 
However, for some reason, possibly because of Dr. Williams* 
intimate and confidential association with the American 
Government for so many years, the phases of American re- 
lations with China are slighted to an extraordinary degree,, 
and these volumes are of Httle value in a study of American 
policy. On the other hand the Williams' Journals, pub- 
lished in China and Japan, and little known to American 
readers, are of superlative importance. 

John W. Foster's "American Diplomacy in the Orient" 
has been for nearly a score of years the only book by an 
American author to cover the field which the present writer 



NOTES ON BIBLIOGRAPHY 691 

has chosen. The book may not fairly be judged for what 
it did not purport to be. It was not based on manuscript 
sources, nor did it attempt a critical handling of any source. 
Its most important contribution was for those years in 
which the author was himself an actor in the events he 
described. Its later chapters were written with the extreme 
caution of a gentleman who was writing about his friends 
and political associates, and the entire volume reflects a 
complacent judgment which has had the effect of presenting 
American policy in Asia as a form of philanthropy. Per- 
haps the most serious defect of the book is its failure to 
bring out the importance of events before 1860. General 
Foster appears to have regarded the questions as they arose 
in the last three decades of the century as novel, whereas, 
in principle, they were but the recurrences of older questions 
in the settlement of which ample precedents had been laid 
down. Of more importance to the student is Foster's 
''Diplomatic Memoirs," the chapters of which devoted to 
the Sino-Japanese War and the Treaty of Shimoneseki, are 
a primary historical source. 

There are no books on American policy in Korea which 
can be recommended. The information upon which they 
have been written has been scanty and very partisan. 
American policy has been misrepresented. This was not a 
very bright page in American history, but it is not open to 
the charges which have been brought against it. 

The British writers, Boulger, Parker, Michie, Lane- 
Poole, Douglas, Alcock, and others, all have the deficiencies 
noted in Morse. They did not find it worth while to consult 
American sources of information. While not uncritical of 
British policy, they incline to accept the British Blue Books 
as the inspired word of truth, and the facts of American 
relations receive only passing attention and the most as- 
tonishing interpretations. They perpetuate many state- 
ments which, according to American sources of the highest 
historical value, would appear to be utterly untenable. 
Sargent's "Anglo-Chinese Commerce and Diplomacy" is of 
a different character, admirable and alone in its class. 



692 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

In conclusion we draw attention to a group of studies by 
American scholars of certain limited phases of the American 
policy. Callahan's "American Relations in the Pacific and 
the Far East, 1784-1900/' was the pioneer. It was written 
just after the occupation of the Philippines and reflects the 
resurgence of American imperialism of the period. It has 
been much criticised but it had many merits as an introduc- 
tion to the subject. Callahan grasped the cycle of events 
and realized that in 1898 the United States was really re- 
turning to a phase of policy similar to that of the fifties. 
This was an important contribution which not all students 
were ready to appropriate. Paullin's "Diplomatic Negotia- 
tions of American Naval Officers," and his even more 
valuable "Early Voyages of American Naval Vessels in the 
Orient" set a high standard of scholarship and remain in 
this field unchallenged. Their deficiency is merely in the 
scope, for they were based too exclusively upon the naval 
records. The State Department archives are necessary to 
complete the picture and when PauUin wrote the more re- 
cent ones were not available. Treat's "Diplomatic Rela- 
tions between the United States and Japan, 1853-65," is 
another scholarly study. While the present writer has not 
always found it possible to accept Treat's interpretations, 
and has rejected the valuation which he placed upon the 
services of one man, he has used the book with very great 
appreciation. Treat's more recent "Japan and the United 
States, 1853-1921," is of less value and the irenic nature of 
the lectures which it comprises would appear to have em- 
barrassed a perfectly impartial statement of the facts. 
LeRoy's intensive study of the first few years of American 
policy in the Philippines stands in a class by itself. It is 
the indispensable guide to the student. Likewise, Morison's 
"Maritime History of Massachusetts, 1783-1860," is an 
incomparable book. It has only the defect of the limita- 
tion of the subject. From Morison one might easily reach 
the conclusion that the contribution of Massachusetts to 
the early East India trade of the United States was greater 
than it actually was. Philadelphia and New York would 



NOTES ON BIBLIOGRAPHY 693 

appear from the records, incomplete though they are, to 
have had an importance which is not assigned to them by 
Morison, The most adequate single source for the entire 
period is the historical sections of Moore's ''Digest." 

Passing from the mature works of American historians 
we come to a group of academic studies by post graduate 
students. At the head of this list, in value, stands Koo's 
"Status of Aliens in China." Next to it is Nitobe's study 
which now possesses, in addition to its scholarly research, 
the value of a historical document for it is an interpreta- 
tion by a Japanese student in an American university in the 
early nineties. Hinkley's "American Consular Jurisprudence 
in the Orient" gives a good summary of extraterritoriality; 
it is deficient in statements of historical fact. Latourette's 
"Early Relations between the United States and China," 
1784-1844, is particularly valuable for its critical bibliog- 
raphy. Clements' "Boxer Rebellion" is good. There is a 
steadily increasing list of doctorate theses by Japanese and 
Chinese students in American universities. They are of 
very unequal value. Their too common defects are a 
neglect of original sources, and a tendency towards special 
pleading. Many of the Japanese students have made im- 
portant contributions by supplying translations from Japa- 
nese sources not otherwise available. A few Chinese have 
made similar contributions, but there is a regrettable lack 
of Chinese source material in the output of Chinese stu- 
dents and an undiscriminating use of British sources which 
often weakens the cause so dear to their hearts. While 
Chinese sources may not be available to Chinese students 
in America, and while many of the Chinese historical rec- 
ords were conveniently destroyed by the vandalism of 
foreign invading armies at Peking in 1860 and in 1900, there 
is nevertheless in China a very considerable amount of 
historical record of the highest value which only the 
Chinese graduate student is competent to make use of. 
Hitherto China has rarely spoken for herself in the writing 
of history, and for this reason the Chinese story has suffered 
greatly in the telHng. The publication of Chinese source 



694 AMERICANS IN EASTERN ASIA 

material on the history of China's foreign relations would 
doubtless work havoc in all existing histories. Meanwhile 
the Chinese students have by no means made the most of 
the Chinese sources which are^ available in American Gov- 
ernment documents. 

It is also very regrettable that greater inducement has 
not been given to post-graduate historical students to edit 
and publish as theses the vast amount of manuscript ma- 
terial which lies unused and unknown in the various manu- 
script collections, particularly in the libraries of the north- 
ern Atlantic seaboard. Some of these manuscripts, com- 
petently edited, would be at least as good a test of scholarly 
ability as the theses which appear from year to year, and 
to the general public they would be of vastly greater value. 



i , 



• - BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Manuscripts in United States Government Archives 

Department of State. • 

Despatches to Consuls. 

Batavia Consular Letters. 

Canton Consular Letters. 

Honolulu Consular Letters. 

Ningpo Consular Letters. 

Manila Consular Letters. 

Smyrna Consular Letters. 

British Legation, Notes from, 

China Instructions. 

China Despatches. 

Chinese Legation, Notes from. 

Japan Instructions. 

Japan Despatches. 

Japanese Legation, Notes from. 

Korea Instructions. 

Korea Despatches. 

Russia Instructions. 

Russia Despatches. 

Russian Legation, Notes to. 

Townsend Harris Papers. Bureau of Appointments. 

Capt. John Kendrick. Correspondence concerning Settlement of his 
Estate. Library, D. of S. 

Miscellaneous Letters. 

Edmund Roberts Papers. 
Navy Department. 

Captains' Letters. 

East India Squadron Letters. 

Commodore R. W. Shufeldt: "Cruise of the Ticonderoga." 
■ : Papers (deposited in Library). 

Other Manuscripts 

Bancroft Collection. America and England. New York Public Library. 

Papers of- Continental Congress. Library of Congress. 

Philip Cuyler Letter Book. New York Public Library. 

George C. Foulk Papers. New York Public Libraiy. 

Alexander Hamilton Papers. Library of Congress. 

Townsend Harris Papers. College of the City of New York Library. 

. New York Public Library. 

Journals (typewritten copy). Library of Congress. 

Hudson Collection. New York Public Library. 

Joseph Ingraham. "Journal of the Voyage of the Hope." Library of 
Congress. 

695 



696 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Thomas Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress. , 

William Law Papers. New York Public Library. 
James Madison Papers. Library of Congress. 

. New York Public Library. 

Edmund Roberts Papers. Library of Congress. 
Daniel Webster Papers. Library of Congress. 
Oliver Wolcott and Co. Account Books. New York Historical Society. 

United States Government Publications. 

Congressional Documents (given below in the order of publication). 
Lowndes Report on Coinage. H. Doc. Ill, 15th Cong. 2nd Sess. 
Floyd Report on Oregon. H. Repts. 45, 16-2. 
China Trade, Report on, Feb. 6, 1826. S. Doc. 31, 19-1. 
Tea Smuggling. H. Doc. 137, 19-1. 

Forbes, R. B. and Others, Memorial of. H. Doc. 40, 26-1. 
Fanning, Edmund, Memorial of. H. Doc. 57, 26-1. 
Canton Consular Letters. H. Doc. 119, 26-1. 
Boston and Salem Merchants, Petition of. H. Doc. 170, 26-1. 
China Trade, Secretary of Treas. Report on. H. Doc, 248, 26-1. 
Canton Consular Letters. H. Doc. 71, 26-2. 
Pres. Tyler, Message of July 1, 1842. H. Doc. 35, 27-3. 
Adams, John Quincy, Report on China Mission Appropriation. H. Repts. 

93, 27-3. 
Cushing, Caleb, Correspondence of. S. Doc. 67, 28-2. 

. S. Doc. 58, 28-2. 

Webster, Daniel, Instructions to Cushing. S. Doc. 138, 28-2. 

Pratt Resolution on Treaty with Japan. H. Doc. 138, 28-2. 

Kearny Correspondence. S. Doc. 139, 29-1. 

Palmer, Aaron Haight, Letter to Buchanan, H. Doc. 96, 29-2. 

. Memoir Geographical, Political and Commercial on Siberia, 

Manchuria, and Asiatic Islands of the N. Pacific Ocean. S. Misc. Doc. 

80, 30-1. 
King, T. Butler, Report of Com. on Naval Affairs. H. Repts. 596, 30-1. 
Davis, John W., Corres. on Consular Courts. S. Ex. Doc. 72, 31-1. 
Glynn, Commander James, Correspondence of. H. Ex. Doc. 84, 31-1. 
Balestier, Joseph, Correspondence of. S. Ex. Doc. 38, 32-1. 
Webster, Daniel, Report on Present Relations with Japan. S. Ex. Doc. 

59, 32-1. 
Kennedy, John P., Report on Trans-Pacific steamers. S. Ex. Doc. 49, 

32-2. 
Marshall, Humphrey, Correspondence of. H. Ex. Doc. 123, 33-1. 
Perry, M. C, Correspondence of. S. Ex. Doc. 34, 33-2. 
Palmer, Aaron Haight, Memorial to Senate. S. Misc. Doc. 10, 33-2. 
Rockhill, John A., Report on Trans-Isthmian Canal. H. Rept. 145, 33-2. 
Parker, Peter, Correspondence on Coolie Trade. S. Ex. Doc. 99, 34-1. 
McLane, Robert M., Correspondence of. S. Ex. Doc. 22, 35-2, 2 vols. 
Parker, Peter, Correspondence of. S. Ex. Doc. 22, 35-2, 2 vols. 
Consular Officers, Compensation for. H. Ex. Doc. 68, 35-2. 
Reed, William B., Correspondence of. S. Ex. Doc. 30, 36-1. 
Ward, John E., Correspondence of. S. Ex. Doc. 30, 36-1. 
Marcy, William H., Instructions to McLane. S. Ex. Doc. 39, 36-1. 
Harris, Townsend, Corres. on Japanese Mission. S. Ex. Doc. 25, 36-1. 
Japan, Purchase of War Steamers in U. S. S. Ex. Doc. 33, 37-3. 
Midway Islands, Occupation of. S. Ex. Doc. 79, 40-2. 
Japanese Immigration to Hawaiian Islands. S. Ex. Doc. 80, 40-2. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 697 

Midway Islands, Harbor Improvement. S. Rept. 194, 40-3. 

China, American Claims on. H. Ex. Doc. 29, 40-3. 

Consular Service Inspection. S. Ex. Doc. 7, 41-3. 

Chinese Immigration Investigation. S. Rept. 689, 44-2. 

Chinese Immigration. Oliver P. Morton Opinion. S. Misc. Doc. 20, 45-2. 

Shanghai Consulate Investigation. H. Misc. Doc. 31, 45-2. 

Seward, Geo. F., Report of Investigation. H. Rept. 134, 45-3. 

Chinese Indemnity, H. Rept. 970, 48-1; see also, H. Ex. Doc. 29, 40-3; 

H. Ex. Doc. 69, 41-2; H. Rept. 113, 45-3; H. Rept. 1142, 46-2. 
Korean Army, American Instructors for. S. Rept. 1443, 48-2. 
China, Report on Pending Treaty, Sept. 18, 1888. S. Ex. Doc. 273, 50-1. 
Merchant Marine in Foreign Trade (1890). H. Rept. 1210, 51-1. 
Hawaiian Islands, Harrison Message on Annexation. S. Ex. Doc. 76, 52-2. 
Philippines, McKinley Transmits Treaty of Paris to Senate. S. Doc. 62, 

55-3. 
Aguinaldo, Communications with. S. Doc. 208, 56-1. 
Philippine Islands, Senate Hearings. S. Doc. 331, 57-1, 3 parts. 
Rockhill, W. W., Correspondence on Boxer Settlement. S. Doc. 67, 57-1. 
China, U. S. Military Operations in. War Dept. Doc. 124, Pub. XXX. 

(For complete list of congressional documents 1828-1861, see Adelaide 
R. Hasse. Index to U. S. Docs, relating to Foreign Affairs [Washington, 
1914, 3 parts] ; for further details of printed diplomatic correspondence 
1861-1900, see index volume to Foreign Relations.) 

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U. S. Statutes at Large. 

Diplomatic Correspondence, Sept. 19, 1783-Mar. 4, 1789. 
Annals of Congress. 

Intercontinental Telegraph, Seward Report to Senate (1864). 
Charles Sumner, Speech on Cession of Russian America (1867). 
Keim, DeB. Randolph. Report on Consular Service of U. S. (1872). 
Rejection of Henry W. Blair by Chinese Government (1892). 
Monthly Summary of Commerce and Finance, April, 1898. 
Monthly Summary of Commerce and Finance, July, 1899. 
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Pierce, Herbert H. D. "Tour of Consular Inspection" (1904). 
Moore, John Bassett. "Arbitrations" (1898). 
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Collections of Treaties and Agreements 

"Treaties and Conventions between the United States and Other Powers 

1776-1887, with Notes" (1889). 
"Treaties, Conventions, International Acts, Protocols, and Agreements 

between the United States and Other Powers 1776-1909." Compiled 

by WilHam M. Malloy. 2 vols. S. Doc. 357, 61-2. 
Rockhill, W. W. "Treaties and Conventions with or Concerning China 

and Korea, 1894-1904" (1904); Supplement (1908). 
MacMurray, J. V. A. "Treaties and Agreements with and Concerning 

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Etranges" (Tokio, 1908). 
Martens' "Recueil de Traites" (Deuxieme Series. Gottingue, 1876). 
Korea. Treaties and Agreements (Washington, 1921). 



698 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

British Parliamentaky Papers 

House of Commons, 1821, Vol. 7. 

House of Commons, Sessional Papers, 1830, Vols. 5-6. 

Correspondence Relative to Affairs in China, 1839-41. Private and Con- 
fidential. 

China. 40. 1847. Orders, Ordinances, etc. (795). 

Coolie Trade and Emigration from Hongkong, 1857-8 (481). 

Hansard's Debates. Series 3, Vol. CXLIV. 

Lord Elgin- Yeh Correspondence. 1857-8 (2322). 

Lord Elgin-Earls of Clarendon and Malmesbury Corres. 1860 (2618). 

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Campbell, Archibald. "A Voyage Around the World 1806-1812." Tran- 
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BIBLIOGRAPHY 699 

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APPENDIX 



Presidents, Secretaries of State, and Diplomatic Representatives in China, Japan, 
AND Korea (1842-1900) 

JOHN TYLER 

Daniel Webster (Mass.) (Mar. 5, '41-May 8, '43). 

China Japan Korea 

Caleb Oushing," (Mass.) 
(May 8, '43 — Com- 
niissione'r ; also E. 
E. & M. P.). 
John C. Calhoun (So. Car.) (April 1, 1844-Mar. 10, 1845). 
Caleb Gushing'' (Mass.) 
(Aug. 1.5, '44). Com- 
missioner. 
JAMES K. POLK 

James Buchanan (Perm.) (Mar. 11, '45-Mar. 7, '49). 



Japan 
Alexander H. Everett * 
(Mass.). 



China 
Alexander H. Everett 

(Mass.) (Mar. 13, 

'45-June 28, '47). 
John W. Davis (Ind.) 

(Jan. 3, '48-May 25, 

'50). 

ZACHARY TAYLOR and MILLARD FILLMORE 

John M. Clayton (Del.) (Mar. 7, '49-July 22, '50). 
Daniel Webster (Mass.) (July 22, '50-Oct. 24, '52). 



Japan 
John H. Aulick " (June 

10, '51). 
M. C. Perry" (Nov. 5, 

'52). 



China 
Thomas A. R. Nelson 
(Tenn.) (Mar. 6, 
'51 ; resigned). 
Joseph Blunt (N. Y.) 
(Oct. 15, '51 ; de- 
clined). - 
Humphrey Marshall 

(Ky.) (Aug. 4, '52- 
Jan. 27, '54). 
Edward Everett (Mass.) (Nov. 6, '52-Mar. 3, '53) 



FRANKLIN PIERCE 

William L. Marcy (N. Y.) (Mar. 7, '53-Mar. 6, 



'57). 



Japan 
Townsend Harris " (N. 
Y.) Cone. Gen. 
(Sept. 13, '56-Jan. 
19, '59). 



China 
Robert J. Walker 

(Miss.) (June 22, 

'53 ; declined). 
Robert M. McLane 

(Md.) (Oct. 18, '53- 

Dec. 12, '54). 
Peter Parker " (Mass.) 

(Aug. 16, '55-Aug. 

25, '57). 

JAMES BUCHANAN 

Lewis Cass (Mich.) (Mar. 6, '57-Dec. 12, '60). 



China 


Japan 




William B. Reed » •» 


Townsend Hams "^ 


(N. 


(Pa.) (Apr. 18, '57- 


Y.) (Jan. 19, 


'59- 


Dec. 8, '58). 


Apr. 26, '62). 




John E. Ward (Ga.) 






(Dec. 5, '58-Dec., 






'60). 







Korea 



Korea 



Korea 



Korea 



705 



706 



APPENDIX 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN and ANDREW JOHNSON 

William H. Seward (N. Y.) (Mar. 6, '61-Mar. 3, '69). 



China 
Anson Burling'ame 

(Mass.) (July 15, 

'61-Nov. 21, '67). 
J. Ross Browne (CaL) 

(Mar. 11, '68-July 5, 

'69). 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 



Japan 
Robert H. Pruyn (N. 

Y.) (Jan. 22, '62- 

Oct. 25, '65). 
Chauncey M. Depew 

(N. Y.) (Nov. 15, 

'65 ; declined). 
Robert B. Van Valken- 

burgh (N. Y.) (Jan. 

18, '66-Nov. 11, 

'69). 



Hamilton Fish (N. Y.) (Mar. 17, '69-Mar. 12, '77). 

Japan 
Charles E. DeLong ^ 
(Nev.) (Apr. 21, 
'69-Oct. 7, '73). 
John A. Bingham 
(Ohio) (Dec. 11, 
'73-July 2, '85). 



China 

William A. Howard 
(Mich.) (Apr. 17, 
'69 ; declined). 

Frederick F. Low 
(Cal.) (Dec. 21, '69- 
Mar. 28, '74). 

Benjamin P. Avery 
(Cal.) (Apr. 10, '74- 
Nov. 8, '75). 

George F. Seward 
(Cal.[?]) (Jan. 7, 
'76-Aug. 6, '80). 



Korea 
George F. Seward « 
(N. Y.) (July 27, 
'68). 



Korea 
Frederick F. Low * 
(Cal.) (1870). 



RUTHERFORD B. HAYES 

William M. Evarts (N. Y.) (Mar. 12, '77-Mar. 7, '81). 
China Japan 

James B. Angell '^ 
(Mich.) (Apr. 9, 
'80-Oct. 4, '81). 



Korea 



JAMES A. GARFIELD and CHESTER A. ARTHUR 
James G. Blaine (Me.) (Mar. 7, '81-Dec. 19, '81). 
China Japan 



Frbdeeick T. Frelinghuysen (N. J.) (Dec. 19, '81-Mar. 6, 
John Russell Young 



(N. Y.) (Mar. 
'82-Apr. 8, '85). 



15, 



Korea 
R. W. Shufeldt (Cal.) 
(Nov. 14, '81). 

'85). 
Lucius H. Foote (Cal.) 
(Feb. 27, '83-Jan. 
19, '85). 



GROVER CLEVELAND 

Thomas F. Bayard (Del.) (Mar. 7, '85-Mar. 6, '89). 
China Japan 

Charles Denby (Ind.) Richard B. Hubbard 

(May 29, '85-July (Texas) (Apr. 2, 



15, '98). 



BENJAMIN HARRISON 

James G. Blaine (Me.) (Mar. 
China 
Henry W. Blair (N. H.) 
(Feb. 27, '91 ; unac- 
ceptable to China). 



'85-May 15, '89). 



■, '89-June 4, '92). 

Japan 
John F. Swift (Cal.) 

(Mar. 12, '89-Mar. 

10, '91). 
Frank L. Coombs (Apr. 

20, '92). 



John W. Foster (Ind.) (June 29, '92-Feb. 23, '93). 



Korea 
William H. Parker <= 

(D. C.) (Feb. 19, 

'86-Oct. 29, '86). 
Hugh A. Dinsmore 

(Okla.) (Jan. 12, 

'87). 



Korea 
William 0. Bradley 

(Ky.) (Mar. 30, 

'89 ; declined). 
Augustine Heard 

(Mass.) (Jan. 30, 

'90-June 27, '93). 



APPENDIX 



707 



GROVER CLEVELAND 

Walter Q. Gresham (IU.) (Mar. 6, '93-May 28, '93). 
China Japan 

Edwin Dun (Ohio) 
(Apr. 4, '93-June 
30, '97). 
Richard B. Olney (Mass.) (June 10, '95-Mar. 5, '97). 

WILLIAM McKINLEY 

John Sherman (Ohio) (Mar. 6, '97-Apr. 26, '98). 



Korea 
John M. B. Sill (Cal.) 
(Jan. 12, ■&4-Sept. 
13, '97). 



Japan 
Alfred E. Buck (Ga.) 
(Apr. 13, '97-Dec. 
4, '02). 
28, '98-Sept. 16, '98). 
'98-). 



Korea 
Horace N. Allen (Ohio) 
(July 17, '97-Dec. 
10, '01). 



China 
Edwin H. Conger (111.) 
(Jan. 19, '98-Mar. 8, 
'05). 
William R. Day (Ohio) (Apr. 
John Hay (D. C.) (Sept. 30, 
William W. Rockhill * 
(Pa.) (July 19, '98- 
Sept. 8, '01). 

* Commissioned to make treaty. 

" Post raised to Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary. 
"= Post reduced to Minister Resident and Consul General. 
<• Post raised to Minister Resident. 

^ The dates given below the names of the diplomatic representatives indicate dates 
of appointment or confirmation, and of retirement or resignation. 

* Special agent. 



INDEX 



Abbot, Com. Joel: 191 

Adams, John Quincy: 89; 105; 
106; lecture before Mass. Hist. 
Soc, 107; opium, 120; 672 

Advisers, foreign: in China, 587; in 
Japan, 588 

Africa: v; 30 

Aguinaldo, Emilio: 617-8 

Alaska: telegraph, 409; purchase, 
416; 590; 610; 636; payment, 
671 

Alcock, Sir Rutherford: 201; 217ff.; 
226; 228; 317; 386; "naked 
force," 388; 391-2; 396; policy 
in Japan, 400 ; 401 ; 418 

Aleutian Islands: 409; 416; 590 

Allen, Dr. H. N.: 478; 483; made 
minister, 505 ; 557 ; 569 ; 616 

Alliance: with Great Britain, vi; 
• 281 ; 298ff. ; Siam, 351 ; 357 ; 361 ; 
China-Japan, 437-8; 608; over- 
tures in 1898, 640; Beresford 
tour, 641-2; 664 

American Policy, see United States 

Amoy: 211; 327; 557 

Amur River: 179; 357; 409; 429; 
590; 649 

Anderson, Gen. T. M.: 618 

Angell, James B.: 458; on treaty 
of 1868, 540; treaty of 1882, 543 

Anglo-Chinese War, 1839-42: Amer- 
ican rel. to, 91ff. ; cause of, 
106-7; 179; 181; influence in 
Japan, 256; 304; 664 

Anglo-French War with China : 343 ; 
354; 386; 388; 490; 509 

Anglo-Japanese alliance : 640-1 ; 644 

Annam: 428; French relations, 
491-2 

Annapolis: Jap. students at naval 
academy, 454 

Aoki, Count: address to Diet, 497; 
529; missionaries, 566 

Arbitration: U. S. proposed to 
Japan, 400; 443; 490-1; 491; 
494; Sino-Jap. War, 498; Boxer 
Protocol discussions, 659 



Archer, Samuel: 10; 18 
Armstrong, Com. James: Ba,rrier 

Forts, 282 ; Formosa, 286ff. ; 300 
"Arrow" affair: 282; 311; 402 
Arthur, Pres. Chester A.: 464; on 

treaty revision, 523-4; Chinese 

immigration, 544 
Ashmore Fisheries dispute: 494 
Astor, John Jacob: 71; 78; 683 
Audience question: 334; 441; 636 
Aulick, Com. J. H.: commissioner 

to Japan, 258; 261 

Bacon, Augustus 0.: joint resolu- 
tion, 628-9 
Balestier, Joseph : 350 
Balfour, Capt. G.: 195 
Balluzec: Russian Minister, Peking, 

374 
Baltimore: 6; 26; 115; Wabash of, 

opium ship, 119-20 
Bankok, see Siam 
Barrier Forts: Americans attack, 

282; 300 
Batavia and Batavian Republic, see 

Java 
Bayard, Thomas F.: 546; 608 
Beche de mer: 34; 41 
Belgium: Hankow-Peking railroad, 

601-2 
Benton, Senator Thos.: 112 
Beresford, Lord Charles: visit to 

East, 641 ; proposes alliance, 

642; 644 
Berthemy, J. F. G.: 375; and 

Seward, 419 
Betsey of N. Y.: 11 
Biddle, Com. James: 190; Shanghai, 

197; Japan, 249-50; and Kiying, 

294 
Bingham, John A.: and Shufeldt, 

456; on treaty revision, 515ff. ; 

523; retirement, 525; 673 
Blaine, James G.: instructions to 

Shufeldt, 461; 608; Hawaii, 611 
Blair, Henry W., rejection of: 548 
"Blood Thicker than Water": 338ff. 



709 



710 



INDEX 



Boer War: 639; 645 

Bombay: 27; Com. Parker, opium, 
126; Roberts at, 129 

Bond, Phineas: opinion of, 56 

Bonham, Sir John: 275 

Bonifacio, Andreas: 611 

Bonin Islands: U. S. flag raised, 
266; 272; 274; British claims, 
275; 361; 428; Japan asserts 
sovereignty, 432-3 

Boston: 5; 27; trade with Zanzibar, 
30; merchants' memorial to 
Congress, 103; 115; list prin- 
cipal merchants, 137; 683 

Bourboulon, M. de: 334 

Bowring, Sir John: 222; 230ff.; at 
Pei-ho, 238-9; 281; Formosa, 
288; 297; 299; and Townsend 
Harris, 349 ; Siam treaty, 351 ; 
Japan mission, 353; 357 

Boxer Insurrection: 650ff. ; Protocol, 
655ff. 

Bradford, Oliver B.: railways, 595-7; 
687 

Brandt, von: 435; 513; 635 

Brice, Calvin: railways in China, 
602 

Bridgman, Rev. E. C: Chinese 
sect'y, chaplain, Cushing mis- 
sion, 142; 295; 555-6; 559; 563 

British, see Great Britain 

Broughton's Bay: 467; 485 

Bruce, Sir F. W. A.: 334; 336ff.; 
and Buriingame, 372ff.; trans- 
ferred to Washington, 379 

Buchanan, James: to Everett, 186; 
223; 293; poHcy of administra- 
tion, 293ff.; on Ward mission, 
343; 607; consular system, 
671 

Burgevine, Henry A.: 369-71; 586; 
595 

Buriingame, Anson: vi; sketch, 
367; service of in China, 368£f.; 
in U. S. and Europe, 368; 
death, 368; mission to western 
powers, 378ff.; "shining cross" 
speech, 385; and Seward, 410; 
418; 589; telegraphs, 590; 595; 
papers, 687 

Burmah: 428; Margery, 454 

Cables, see Telegraphs 

Cabot, George: letter to Pres. 
Washington, 29 

Calcutta: 3; 10; 27; Consular Let- 
ters, 683 



California: 177; 180; adventurers, 
188; 253; 374; Chinese immigra- 
tion, 536ff.; demands Chinese 
exclusion, 546; 549 
Callahan, J. M.: 692 
Canton: 3; methods of early trade, 
49-51; flag-staff incident, 153; 
180; 211; British attack, "Ar- 
row" affair, 281-2; right of 
entry, 295-6; capture, 311-2; 
336; riot, 1883, 494; mission- 
aries, 559; 589; consulate, 670; 
Consular Letters, 683 
Cape Horn: 24; 34 
Cape of Good Hope: 9; 24 
Cape Town, see Cape of Good Hope 
Captains, see Ship-masters 
Cargoes: 19ff.; California, 180 
Carr, Lewis: 229 
Carrington, Edward: 63 
Cass, Lewis: policy of, 293ff.; 
Napier corres., 300ff.; instruc- 
tions to Reed, 306; 328; Harris 
to, 359; 608 
Chaffee, Maj. Gen. Adna R.: 655 
Chamberlain, Joseph: 642; 643 
Chapedelaine, Abbe: murder of, 311 
Chemulpo: 467; 474 
Chesapeake: 26 
Chichester, Admiral: 620; 639 
China: and Pacific, 177; compared 
with Japan, 347; ihid., 425ff.; 
and Korea, 436-7; Am. trade 
with, table, 580-1; 
— Sea: Perry on control of, 273; 
—Dismemberment of: 206; 220; 
British attitude, 223-4; 296; 
379; and Buriingame, 388-9; 
claims to Korea, 451ff.; 461-2; 
threatened war with Japan, 
468; political conditions, 1881, 
471; 603-4; 621; 649; 
— Merchants Co. steamers: 471; 
Franco-Chinese War, 494-5 ; 585 ; 
See also Chinese, Anglo-Chinese, 
Franco-Chinese, Sino-Japanese, 
Manchu, Tsungli Yamen, 
Treaties and Conventions, and 
names of individuals and places 
China trade: early importance of, 

18; speculation, 74 
Chinese: dishonesty, 58; account 

Treaty Wanghia, 157 
Chinese Government, international 
relations of: ix; 54; orders 
foreigners expelled, 93; de- 
termines destruction opium t., 



INDEX 



711 



94; opens Five Ports to all na- 
tions, 110; opium, 1817, 120-1; 
189; 345; Burlingame mission, 
386 ; policy in Korea, 460ff. 

Chinese Government : Americans 
apply for protection, 83-4; arro- 
gance, 106; and treaty revision, 
378-9; policy on telegraphs and 
railroads, 592ff.; Woosung Rail- 
way Co., 596; turns to Russia, 
600 

Chinese Repository: 556; 684-5 

Chinese students in U. S.: 463; 545; 
600 

Civil War, American: 392; 409; and 
Seward's policy, 414; 416; 579; 
588; 590 

Claims: 169; 211; Shanghai, 1854, 
230; 306; review of Am., 326ff.; 
commission, 329-30; Japan, 399; 
Bonin Islands, 432; Ashmore 
Fisheries, 494; 651; Boxer 
claims, 658-9; Ward-Hill, 687; 
See also Arbitration, Good Offices, 
Mediation, Indemnity 

Clarendon, Lord: 230; 238; on 
Bonin Islands, 275; Parker 
visits, 280-1; 299; 305; 368; 
Burlingame and, 386ff . ; 510 ; 567 

Clemens, Paul H.: 693 

Cleveland, Pres. Grover: 524-5; 530; 
Chinese immigration, 546; 547; 
withdraws Hawaiian treaty, 
551; 612; 640 

Clippers: opium, 126-7; introduc- 
tion, 179-80 

Coal: 183ff.; Japan, 253; 261ff.; 
269; Formosa, 276; 284ff.; 
Parker to Marcy, 287; Lay-Os- 
born flotilla, 587; Kaiping Com- 
pany, 598 

Coasting trade: China, 161; 321; 
510; Japan, 514; Korea, 522; 
China and Japan, 585 

Cochin China, proposed treaty, 
1832, 128; Roberts visit, 1832, 
133; 134; 272; France annexes, 
471; 491-2 

Co-hong, see Hong-merchants 

Columbia, voyage of: 9; 16; 38; 683 

Columbia River: 39 

Commissioner, U. S.: proposed by 
Tyler, 111; not merchant, 136; 
See also Diplomatic service and 
appendix 

Commission firms: 17; 52; 60; 
growth of Am. firms, 71 



Communications: 176; 206; short- 
ened, 409 
See also Telegraphs, Steam Navi- 
gation, Railroads 

Concessions (foreign settlements) : 
China, 168; 194ff.; Shanghai, 
196; Burlingame doctrine, 373; 
382; 589; in Japan and Korea, 
590; 
— (commercial) : in China, 588- 
90; 597-601; Korea, 504 

Conger, Edwin H.: 555; 665; retires 
on leave, 666 

Congress: petitioned for consular 
system at Canton, 76; discusses 
Anglo-Chinese War, 102; 303-4; 
Korea, 475 ; 481 ; Chinese immi- 
gration, 544ff.; Act of May 6, 
1882, 544 ; Act of Sept. 13, 1888, 
547; Scott Act, 547; Geary Act, 
548; annexation of Hawaii, 552; 
Pacific Mail subsidy, 585; trans- 
Pacific Telegraph, 590; Ha- 
waiian annexation, 614; debates 
on Hawaii and Philippines, 624ff. 

Congress, cruise of: 79 

Connecticut: 6 

Consequa: 58; petition to Pres. 
Madison, 86 

Consular service: 63; 75; 170; 
Tyler on, 186ff.; McLane re- 
port, 187; 230; courts, 319-20; 
Chinese immigration, 544 ; 
scandals, 597; general survey of, 
669ff. ; Keim report, 670; Pierce 
report, 671; Act of May 16, 
1848, 671 

Cook, Capt.: 4 

Coolie trade: 189; 320; Maria Luz, 
490; 536ff. 
See also Immigration 

Coombs, Frank L.: 549-50 

Cooperative policy: vi; at Canton, 
1839, 96; rejected, 97; Canton 
merchants propose, 99; Caleb 
Gushing on, 104; Boston and 
Salem merchants, 136; 159; 182; 
211; 213; British desire, 223; 
McLane instructions, 225 ; Bow- 
ring, 233; Shanghai, 1854, 334; 
McLane 's proposal for joint 
blockade, 240 ; Parker-Claren- 
don interview, 280-1 ; for Can- 
ton, 289; Marcy, 290; Alex. H. 
Everett, 296 ; Buchanan-Cass, 
303ff.; Reed, 312ff.; Ward, 
338ff.; Burhngame and, 372£f.; 



712 



INDEX 



in Japan^ 392-3; 405; Seward's 
policy, 410ff. ; complete abroga- 
tion, 500; 508ff.; Bingham on, 
516-7; treaty of 1878, 608; 643; 
review of, 664ff. ; necessity for, 
677 

Cornwallis, Lord: 26 

Cotton: beginnings of Am. export 
of, 20-21; tariff of 1816, 27; 34; 
73; growers, 102; 177; King re- 
port, 183; Japan, 252; 319; raw 
cotton trade with Japan, 582 

Credits: at old Canton, 52 

Crews: character Am. sailor, 15; 
British sailor, 15; treatment, 16 

Crimean War: 180; 201; 233; 257; 
275; 300; 639 

Cunningham, Edw.: 200; 217ff. 

Curtius, Donker: 353 

Cushing, Caleb: vi; 104; China 
mission, 113; preparation for 
mission, 128ff. ; instructions, 138; 
mission organized, 142; at 
Macao, 143; policy of, 145ff.; to 
Act'g Gov. Ching, 149ff.; com- 
pared with Sir H. Pottinger, 
159-60 ; on extraterritoriality, 
164ff.; 175-6; 181; failure of 
policy, 192; 206; opinion as 
Att'y Gen. on claims, 232; 
Japan, 249; 254; and Perry poli- 
cies, 277; compared with Bur- 
lingame, 368; 384; missionaries, 
556; 607; 608; published corres., 
685 

Cushing, John P.: character of, 60; 
71; "rice-ships," 91; opium, 118; 
579 

Danish, see Denmark 

Davis, Sir J. F.: analysis of Treaty 

of Wanghia, 161 
Davis, John W.: sketch, 190; 197; 

Griswold to, 198; to Viceroy, 

199; Japan, 251; and Kiying, 

294; 296-7; 327 
DeLano, M. M.: telegraphs in 

China, 591-2 
DeLong, C. E.: 432; on China-Jap. 

alliance, 437-8; recalled, 454; 

673 
Democratic party: 535; 541; 624 
Denby, Charles: Sino-Jap. War, 

500-2; on cooperation, 509; 

Chinese immigration, 546; rail- 
ways, 598-600; 673 
Denby, Charles Jr.: 496 



Denmark: 26; 57; 345; Great 
Northern Teleg. Co., 591ff.; 592 

Denny, O. N.: in Korea; 482-3 

Department of State, 182; 675 

Derby, Elias Haskett: 9; 17; 24; 
27; biography, 683 

Derby, Lord: 513 

Deshima: 246; 256; 353 

Dewev, Com. George: 614; fleet, 
6i5; Battle Manila Bay, 616-7 
and Germans, 619 

Dietrichs, Admiral von: 619 

Dinsmore, Hugh A.: 625 

Diplomatic service: 170; 186ff. ; re- 
view of, 189ff.; salary, 190ff.; 
purchase legation, Peking, 330; 
general survey, 672ff. ; "shirt- 
sleeves" diplomats, -673 

Disraeli: 298 

Dole, Sanford B.: 611 

Dun, Edwin: 499 

Dutch, in India: 26; in Japan, 246; 
256; 363-4; language in Japan, 
557; 
— East India Co.: at old Canton, 
54; Japan, 243-4; extinct, 256 

Duties: American unpaid, 17; at 
old Canton, 91; Siam, 133; Mus.- 
cat, 134; 
China, responsibility for collec- 
tion, 165; Shanghai, 1853, 
216ff.; Japan, 1858, 359; 
See also Tariff, Smuggling, 
Treaties and Conventions 

East Indies Company: 5; 26; rel. 
to N. W. Coast trade, 38; influ- 
ence at Canton, 51 ; 54 ; attitude 
to Americans, 56; dissolution of 
monopoly, 92; opium, 117 
East India Telegraph Co.: 591 
East India: trade, 3; causes, 5; 69; 

British possessions, 357; 579 
Eleanore: seal skins to India, 36 
Elgin, Lord: 311ff.; 360; 364; 644 
E-liang, Viceroy: McLane inter- 
view, 227; 234ff. 
Eliza: goes to Japan, 1798, 32; 
Elliot, Charles: policy of, 93 
Embargo: American, 1808, 33; 
Korean on food-stuffs, 486 ; 683 
Emery and Frazier: ship-yard, 154 
Empress Dowager: 344; 653 
Empress oj China: 5; 6; 8; at Can- 
ton, 44; 
See also Samuel Shaw 
Englishmen, see British 



INDEX 



713 



Evarts, William M.: instructions to 
Shufeldt, 455-6; treaty of 1878, 
Japan, 518-9 

Ever-Victorious Army: 369-71; 642; 
See also F. T. Ward, Burgevine, 
Gordon 

Everett, Alex. H., Com. to China, 
186; sketch, 190; Japan, 249; 295 

Everett, Edward: 112; 264; on 
Perry proposals, 273; 672 

Exchange, problem of: 18ff. ; bills 
on London, 72; basis in Japan, 
355; 
See also Specie 

Expemnent: 11 

Extraterritoriality: Gushing, vi; 
Americans acknowledge Chinese 
jurisdiction, 84; Terranova in- 
cident, 87ff.; Canton merchants, 
100; Siam, 133; Muscat, 134; 
Hsii A-man affair, 153; Treaty 
of Wanghia, 162ff.; 186; omitted, 
Perry treaty, 269; 319; Marcy 
on, Siam and Japan, 350; Siam 
351; 353; Russia-Japan, 354 
384; in Korea, 447; Korea, 470 
510; Japan, 513; 514ff.; 526 
Japan treaties, 1894, 529; mis- 
sionaries and, 561 ; and coasting 
trade, 583; and consuls, 669ff.; 
consular courts, 671 ; 
See also Treaty revision, Treaties 
and Conventions 

Factories, see Hongs 

Faulkland Islands: 37 

Fillmore, Pres. Millard: message, 
190-1 ; to Emperor, Japan, 261 ; 
263; 292-3 

Fish, Hamilton: on China-Jap. al- 
liance, 438; on mediation, 489; 
cooperation, 508-9; treaty revi- 
sion, 517-8; missionaries, 567; 
on telegraph monopoly, 592-3; 
608; 610 

Foochow: 187, 211; McLane, 233; 
Parker, 281 ; 328 

Foord, John: to Hay, 661 

Foote, Com. Lucius H. : appointed 
to Seoul, 472; resigns, 475 

Forbes, J. M.: to Webster, 135-6; 
579 

Forbes, Paul S.: notifies Kiying, 147 

Formosa: U. S. flag over, vii; coal, 
183; Perry's opinion, 272; Perry 
orders investigation, 276; Par- 
ker's policy of acquisition, 284ff . ; 



320; Townsend Harris, 349 
357; U. S. punitive exp., 411 
427; Japanese expedition, 440 
490; Sino-Jap. War, 501ff.; 591 
railways, 599; 612; 638 

Foster, John W.: 501; 635; books, 
690 

Foulk, George C. in Korea : 478 ; re- 
called from Korea, 484; papers, 



France: expedition Korea, vi; at 
old Canton, 54; plenipo. at 
Macao, 152; 178; Shanghai, 198; 
Parker visits, 281; Korea, 282; 
290; 296; 300; 301; 359-60; 
Korea, 417ff.; in E. Asia, 428; 
451 ; Tientsin massacre, 454 ; 
460; annexes Cochin Chii;ia, 
471 ; urges Japan to declare w. 
on China, 479-80; expansion, 
491-2; recession of Liaotung 
Peninsula, 503; Tani/on, 527; 
withdraws from intern'l settle- 
ment, Shanghai, 590;' Syndicate 
of Tientsin, 598; Hankow-Pe- 
king railroad, 601 ; sphere of in- 
fluence, 603-4; Sandwich Is., 
612; entente with Ger. and Rus- 
sia, 635; Franco-American rela- 
tions, 637; 
See also Franco-Chinese War, 
Anglo-French War, Treaties and 
Conventions 

Franco-Chinese War: 478; and 
China-Japan treaty, 480; Amer- 
ican good offices, 391ff.; 502; 
586; 597; 637 

Freight rates: 10; Hongkong-Can- 
ton, 1840, 98; ISO; Chinese sub- 
sidy, 586 

Frelinghuysen, F. T.: 464; instruc- 
tions to Foote, 474; Franco- 
Chinese War, 492-4; 608; 637 

French, see France 

Fukien, Province: Japanese sphere, 
604 

Fur trade : price furs, 5 ; voyage of 
Betsey, 11; 20; 36; seal-skins, 
36ff. ; and opium, 118; and 
Japan, 242; 
value of: 12; 40ff.; 
See also Northwest Coast, In- 
graham, Columbia, Nootka 
Sound 

Fusan: Shufeldt at, 456; Jap. settle- 
ment, 467; Japanese telegraph, 
484 



714 



INDEX 



Geary Act: 548 

General Sherman: wreck of, 417ff. 

Gensan: 467 

Gentlemen's Agreement with Japan: 
550 

Germany: at old Canton, 54; 345; 
Korea, 475 ; and Franco-Chinese 
War, 492; recession of Liaotung 
Peninsula, 503; 520; growth of 
influence in Japan, 525 ; Tanr on, 
527; syndicate, 1885, 597; 602; 
sphere of influence, 604; and the 
Philippines, 619-20; entente 
with France and Russia, 635; 
relations with U. S., 636-7; aid 
to Filipino insurgents, 638 

Gifts: U. S. to Siam, Muscat, etc., 
132; to China, 135-6; list of to 
China, 137; Cushing mission, 
139; to China declined, 156; to 
Japan, 265 

Ginseng: 6; 7; 17; 36 

Girard, Stephen : 10 ; 683 

Gladstone ministry: 510 

Glynn, Com. James: Japan, 251; 257 

Good offices : Tientsin treaty, 321 ; 
431-2; Shogun offers, 434; 473; 
general survey of American, 
489ff.; Sherman, 506; 
See also Arbitration, Mediation 

Gordon, Major Charles G. "Chi- 
nese"; 371 

Gore, John: 4 

Grand Turk: 9; 19; 24 

Grant, Pres. U. S.: good offices to 
Japan and China, 444-5; 455; 
469; policy adopted by U. S., 
473-4; 518; 542 

Great Britain: 5; commercial 
policy at Canton, 54-5; Ameri- 
cans have trouble with, 81 ; ag- 
gressions, 93; policy before 1842, 
128; Roberts on pohcy, 129; 
Webster on, 138; Kiying, 
Chinese ill will, 154; extra- 
territoriality, 162; smuggling, 
166; 168-9; foreign policy, 1840- 
53, 176ff.; Navigation laws, 180; 
consuls in China, 188; claims at 
Shanghai, 196; Marshall on, 
218-9; and Taipings, 219ff.; 
Bowring demands, 1854, 238; 
early efforts to open Japan, 
243ff.; and Japan before 1853, 
255; Perry on, 273; Parker on, 
287; Am. distrust of, 294ff.; 
Alex. H. Everett on, 296; pro- 



poses alliance with U. S., 298ff.; 
intentions in China, 300; "pri- 
ority," 318; policy in China, 
353; Harris on, 357; Clarendon 
to Burlingame, 387; interests in 
E. Asia, 428; 461; Shufeldt on, 
463; on Am. policy, 468; and 
opening of Korea, 472-3; 475ff. ; 
and Franco-Chinese War, 492; 
Sino-Jap. War, 500ff. ; on treaty 
of 1878, 519; conciliation of 
Japan, 524; Tani on, 527; 
British Passengers Act, 536; 
sphere of influence, 604; Sand- 
wich Islands, 609-10; Philip- 
pines, 620; sympathy with 
Japan and U. S., 635; relations 
with U. S., 1899, 638-9; agree- 
ment with Russia, 643; 

Great Britain: manufactures: sold 
by Americans in China, 72; Ja- 
pan, 360; 

minister in Wash.: 213; 223; 

proposes alliance, 300 ff.; inter- 
vention, Sino-Jap. War, 498-9 

Great Northern Telegraph Co.: 
591ff. ; 592; monopoly in China, 
593; 620 

Green, Capt. John: 7 

Gresham, Walter Q. : Sino-Jap. War, 
495ff.; states pohcy, 499; 502; 
608 

Griffis, W. E.: 558; 686 

Griswold, J. Alsop: 197, 579 

Gross, Baron: 31 Iff. 

Haley, "Lady": 36 

Hankow: settlement, 589; railways, 
602 

Hanna, Mark: 609 

Harriet: 9; 11 

Harris, Townsend: 293; sketch of, 
348; instructions, 349-50; minis- 
ter resident, 391; 419; and mis- 
sions, 565; papers, 686 

Harrison, Pres. Benj.: 547-8; 549; 
Sandwich Is., 612 

Hart, Sir Robert: 229; 374; Korean 
customs, 481; to H. C. Merrill, 
482; Franco-Chinese War, 494; 

Hasse Index: -686 

Hawaiian Islands: Am. vessels at 
1826, 12; N. W. coast trade, 42 
70; British flag hoisted, 177 
275; 357; 416; 505; Jap. immi- 
gration, 550; 551-2; 585; gen- 
eral survey Am. relations with, 



INDEX 



715 



607-9; annexation, 609ff. ; revo- 
lution, 611-2; Newlands joint 
resolution, 614 ; debates on, 
624ff.; Hoar on, 626; 679 

Hay, John: V; 420; 608; 622; enters 
cabinet, 634; Salisbury proposes 
alliance, 642; contrilDution of, 
645 ; Hay-Pauncef ote treaty, 
645 ; open door notes, 646-7 ; Cir- 
cular note of July 3, 1899, 656-7; 
Protocol negotiations, 657ff. 

Hayes, Pres. Rutherford B.: 
Chinese immigration, 542 

Heard, Augustine: 72 
: in Korea, 485 

Hepburn, Dr. J. C: 565 

Heusken, C. J.: 354; murder of, 396; 
Seward on, 412-3 

Hienfeng, Emperor: d. 1861, 344 

Higginson, James B.: U. S. consul, 
Calcutta, 1843, 29 

Hinkley, F. E.: 693 

Hiogo: 362 

Hoar, George F.: on Hawaiian an- 
nex., 552 ; 626 ; Philippines, 630-1 

Holcombe, Chester: assists in Ko- 
rean treaty negotiations, 459; 
464; 556-7 

Holland: 4; 345; 
See also Dutch, Treaties and Con- 
ventions 

Hong-Kew: Am. settlement, 590 

Hongkong : occupation predicted, 
55; British occupy, 98; British 
expansion, 128; Am. ship-yard 
moved, 154; bonded warehouse, 
161; 165; 181; 210; coolie trade, 
536; Am. trade with, table, 581; 
telegraph, 591; 608; Dewey, 617 

Hong-merchants: 49; 59; co-hong, 
opium, 117; to Wilcocks on 
opium, 120-1; 559 

Honolulu, see Hawaiian Islands 

Hope, Admiral Sir James: 336; 
Tattnall assists, 340; and Gen. 
F. T. Ward, 369-70; Tsushima, 
431 

Hope: 11 

Hoppo: 59 

Hotta, Lord: to Mikado, 394; 426-7; 
528; 641 

Houqua : 57 ; honesty, 59 ; sued in 
Phila., 85; opiurn, 118 

House of Representatives, ' appro- 
priation, China mission, 112; 
Burlingame in, 367 
See Congress 



Hubbard, Richard B.: 528; 673 

Hughes, Charles E.: vi 

Hung-Sin-tshuen : see Taiping Re- 
bellion 

Hunt's "Lives of Am. Merchants": 
683 

Ignatieff, Nicholas: 337 

Immigration, Asiatic: 378; 380; 
Seward, 410; 454; Shufeldt- 
Sargent letter, 462; general sur- 
vey of Am. policy, 535ff.; char- 
acter of Chinese immigrants 
537-8; Treaty of 1868, 539-41 
Fifteen Passengers Bill, 542 
Treaty of 1882, 542-3; Act of 
May 6, 1882, 544; and Korean 
policy, 545; Scott Act, 547; 
Geary Act, 548; Japanese, 549ff.; 
Hawaiian Islands, 550-2; 585; 
611; 677; Hawaiian Islands, 
550-2 ; Gentlemen's agreement, 
550; 585; 611; 677 

Tn-chuin, see Chemulpo 

Indemnity : 376 ; 381 ; Shimoneseki, 
401 ; Korea to Japan, 469 ; anti- 
Chinese riots in U. S., 546; 
Boxer, 660-2; 
See also Claims 

India Trade: opening of, 26; special 
privileges, 27; extent, 28; ap- 
pointment U. S. consul, 28; 
India-Canton trade, 29; opium, 
116ff. 

Ingraham, Capt. Joseph: 11; 684 

Inouye: 456; and J. R. Young, 469; 
479; 525 

Inspectorate of Maritime Customs: 
58; inauguration, 225ff.; 324; 
370; efforts to make cosmopoli- 
tan, 374; British head, 604 

Interpreters : at Canton, 63 ; Roberts 
mission, 133; Gushing mission, 
136; 142; 161; Ningpo, 187; 
230; Seoul, 474; missionaries, 
555 

Intervention: effect in China, 61; 
Marshall, 232-3 

Isle de France: see Mauritius 

Italy: 345; 519 

Ito, Count: treaty with China, 479- 
80; treaty of Shimoneseki, 
502ff.; 513 

Irving, Washington: 40 

Iturup, Island of: 354 

Iwakura Embassy: 439; returns to 
Japan, 441-2; 559; 567 



716 



INDEX 



Jackson, Pres. Andrew: letters to 
Oriental sovereigns, 132 

Japan: V; 32; U. S. interest in, 1832 
131ff.; 175; and Pacific, 177 
182; 183; and N. W. coast trade 
242ff.; attempts to open, 242ff. 
Edmund Roberts mission, 244 
Gushing, 249; Zedoc Pratt, 249. 
and European powers before 
1853, 254ff.; internal conditions, 
1853, 257; claims to Bonins and 
Lew Chews, 276; proposed alli- 
ance against, 302; and China 
compared, 347; 349; anti-foreign 
feeling, 393; and China, 425-6; 
and Korea, 429; expansion of, 
430ff.; and Korea, 434ff.; claim 
to Korea, 451 ; threatened war 
with China, 468; Ito on Korea, 
479-80; food-stuffs controversy, 
485-6; policy in Korea after 
1895, 502ff.; and treaty revision, 
51 Iff.; Iwakura Embassy, 512-3; 
and Hawaiian Islands, 551-2; 
Am. trade with, table, 581 ; rail- 
ways, 594-5; sphere of influence, 
604; Honolulu, 612-3; and 
Philippines, 623; relations with 
U. S., 1899, 638; 
See also Sino-Japanese War, 

Treaties and Conventions; 
— Expedition: 192; review of, 
260ff . ; instructions, 261 ; con- 
ciliatory spirit of Japanese, -276; 

Japanese Embassy: 1860, to U. S.: 
394; see Iwakura 
—Policy: 267ff.; astuteness, 356; 
crisis, 1858, 363-4; 393ff.; civil 
war, 398ff.; expulsion of for- 
eigners, 398; in Sino-Japanese 
War, 497ff.; treaty revision, 
512ff.; missionaries, 567; 
— Restoration : 404-5 ; Seward's 
policy, 415; 497 

Java: Am. vessels at Batavia, 1834, 
12; Am. exports to, 21; review 
of trade with, 31-2; Americans 
to Japan, 243; 
—Head: 33 

Jay, John: 28; 62 

Jefferson, Thomas: policy of, 77 

Jehol: 343 

Joy, Benjamin: first U. S. consul, 
Calcutta, 29 

Kagoshima: British bombard, 398; 
399; criticism, 400 



Kaiping Railway Co.: 598 

Kanagawa: 362; see Yokohama 

Kagoshima: 248 

Kasson, John A.: on Chinese re- 
sources, 661 

Katsu, Count, memorial: 526 

Kearny, Commodore Lawrence : 
104; demands most-favored- 
nation treatment, 108ff.; ordered 
to China, 125ff.; 327; 609; pub- 
lished corres., 684 

Keenan, Consul James: 283 

Keim, DeB. Randolph: consular 
service, 670 

Kendrick, Capt. John: sketch of, 
39-40 

Kennedy, John P.: report, 184 

Ketteler, Baron, murder: 663 

Kiaochow: 604; 637 

Kiatka: 591 

Kim Ok-kiun: murder of, 486; 
career, 487 

King, C. W.: voyage of Morrison to 
Japan, 247-8 

King, T. Butler: report, 183 

Kioto: 361 

Kiying : to Kearny, 108-9 ; notified 
of Cushing mission, 147; de- 
cline's Cushing's gifts, 156; to 
Emperor, 156-7; 294 

Koo, V. K. W.: 693 

Korea: V; 182; Roberts, 246; 249; 
France, 282; 357; 409; Seward 
and, 417ff. ; proposed Jap. con- 
quest, 427; tribute to Japan, 
429; Sovereignty and China, 
433; treaty with Japan, 1876, 
447; treaty with U. S., 450ff.; i 
Low-Rogers Expedition, 452-3; 
Shufeldt turned away, 457; 
treaty signed, 460; King of, to 
Pres. of U. S., 460; 464; domes- 
tic conditions after 1863, 466; 
Civilization Party, 467; treaty 
with Japan, 1882, 469; Chinese 
trade regulations, 470 ; survey of 
intern, rels., 471ff. ; and Russia, 
472; Foote, 474; Admiral 
Willes, 474; Parkes's treaty, 
475; treaty with Ger., 475; 
Chinese resident, 475-6; King 
asks for Am. advisers, 477; em- 
bassy to U. S., 478; coup d'etat, 
Dec, 1884, 478-9; Russian 
treaty, 480; survey, 1885-94, ■ 
482ff.; attempted coup d'etat, 
1886, 484; sends minister to 



INDEX 



717 



Wash., 484; food-stuffs for 
Japan, 485-6; declares indep. of 
China, 487; weakness of gov't 
495; Sino-Jap War, 496ff. 
China recognizes indep., 502 
Jap. policy, .502ff.; coup d'etat 
of 1895, 503-4; King in Russian 
Legation, 504; mining conces- 
sion, 504; analyses of Shufeldt 
treaty, 520ff.; Christian mis- 
sions, 568; trade with, 582; 612; 
offers U. S. naval base, 616 

Korff, S. A.: 635 

Kowtow: Roberts mission, 133; 
Webster to Gushing, 139; 164; 
Ward, Peking, 342; 426; 455 

Kuldja: dispute, 471; 542 

Kung, Prince: 344; 380; Bellonet 
correspondence, 418; Grant to, 
444-5 ; Franco-Chinese War, 
493-5 ; Chinese immigration, 
545; 593 

Kurile Islands: 255; 427; divided, 
431-2 

Kwangchow-wan : lease of, 604 

Ladrone Islands: 620 

Lady Washington: 9; 16; in Japan, 
242 

Latourette, K. S.: 684; 693 

Lay, Horatio N.: 229; 376; 587; 
railways in Japan, 594 

Lay-Osborn flotilla: 229; 370; dis- 
posal of, 371; 376; 587; 595 

Ledyard, John: 4; 38 

Legations, see Diplomatic service 

LeGendre, C. W.: 440; 443 

LeRoy, J. A.: 689 

Lew Chews: 250; U. S. coal depot, 
266; sovereignty, 268; Perry's 
opinion, 272; Pres. Pierce and 
Edw. Everett, 273 ; Perry at, 
273-4; 361; 428; China-Japan 
controversy, 438-9; Japan an- 
nexes, 444-6; 490 

Li Hung Chang: 344; and Burge- 
vine, 371 ; and Soyeshima, 441 ; 
Lew Chew controversy, 446; in- 
vites Shufeldt, 457; negotiates 
treaty, 460ff.; 468; trade regula- 
tions, Korea, 470; 471; policy 
in Korea, 473ff. ; 474; on war 
with Japan, 477; negotiations 
with Ito, 479-80; appoints O. N. 
Denny to Korea, 482ff. ; asks re- 
call of Foulk, 484; advises 
Korea to conciliate Japan, 485; 



sends troops to, 487 ; convention 
with France, 1883, 491-2; 
Franco-Chinese War, 492-5; Li- 
Fournier convention, 493; asks 
U. S. mediation in Sino-Jap. 
War, 496; sends Detring to 
Japan, 501 ; goes to Shimone- 
seki, 502; Chinese immigration, 
545; and missionaries, 568; 585; 
Chinese navy, 587; 588; tele- 
graphs, 592; railways, 594ff.; 
598; 599; turns to Russia, 600; 
635 ; Boxer settlement, 655 
Liaotung Peninsula: 501; recession 

of, 503 
Liliuokalani, Queen: 611 
Lin, Imperial Commissioner: ulti- 
matum, 95 
Likin tax: 301; 323; 510; 520 
Lintin Island: opium ships, 117; 122 
Livingston, Edw.: 132; Roberts, 

Japan, 245 
Loans: Japan, 594; China, 599; 600 
Low, F. F. : expedition to Korea, 
436; 452-3; 595; on Russian 
policy, 636 

McCartee, Rev. D. B.: 187 

McEnery, Samuel D.: joint resolu- 
tion, 629 

McKinley, Pres. William: vi; 607; 
609; annexation of Hawaii, 
613; instructions to peace com- 
mission, 621-2; decides to retain 
Philippines, 627; and open 
door, 634ff.; 642; 676 

McLane, Robert M.: on consulates, 
187; sketch, 191; Shanghai land 
q., 204; instruction, 214; 222-3 
policy of, 225ff. ; mediator, 230 
McLane to Marcy, 240; 277 
299; 327; 556 

Macao: 46; Gushing at, 142; 330; 
coolie trade, 536 

Macartney, Lord, Embassy: 55 

Madison, James: 7 

Madras: 10 

Manchu: dynasty fears displace- 
ment, 93; and Taipings, 207; 
347; 356; 650 

Manchuria: 320; 357; 427; Russia 
and, 472; 604; Russian schemes 
in 1900, 659 

Manila: export Am. cottons, 1824 
20; first Am. relations, 33; 98 
276; Dewey, 614; Battle of, 617 
occupation of city, 627 



718 



INDEX 



Marcy, Wm. H.: Marshall to, 204; 
coop, policy, 214; 223; to 
McLane, 225; Shanghai claims, 
231; 238; against joint action, 
240 ; 277 ; attack on Barrier 
Forts, 283 ; to Parker's imperial- 
ism, 290; 299; to Harris, 351; 
608; 610 

Margery: murder of, 454 

Maria Luz, case of: 490-1 

Marshall, Frederic: to Lord Derby, 
513 

Marshall, Humphrey: report on 
crime, 188; appointed com. to 
China, 191 ; on Shanghai mu- 
nicipal code, 203-4; and Tai- 
pings, 206ff.; 277, 327; 369; 556; 
and missionaries, 560; 589; 603 

Martin, Rev. W. A. P.: 313; 381; 
translates Wheaton's Intern. 
Law, 385; 559; 561 

Maryland: 6 

Massachusetts: 6 

Massachusetts: building of, 13; 684 

Mauritius: 10; 24 

Mediation: 306; Harris offers to 
Japan, 358; clause, Japan-U. S. 
treaty, 360; 443; U. S. Grant, 
444-5; 473; Japan treaty, 489; 
Maria Luz, 490; 
See also Good Offices and Arbitra- 
tion 

Mediterranean trade: 21 

Meiji Era: 391 

Merrill, H. F.: Korean customs, 482 

"Middle Kingdom": first edition, 
558 

Midway Islands: U. S. takes posses- 
sion, 416; 610 

Mikado: 362; 364; ratifies treaties 
of 1858, 403; 404; 412; reverence 
for, 426; 
See also Japan 

Milburn's Oriental Commerce: 683 

Min family, Korea: 468 

Missionaries : 102 ; Anglo-Chinese 
War, 146; 161; 169; France and, 
179; 180-1; 187; 191; and Tai- 
ping Reb., 207£f.; Japan, 248; 
Abbe Chapedelaine, 311; Treaty 
of Peking, 343; 348; 352; 361; 
Burlingame treaty, 381; 385; 
417; Tientsin massacre, 454; 
478; 494; 505; 520; general sur- 
vey, 555ff.; legal status, 559ff. ; 
extraterritoriality, 561 ; aggres- 
sive spirit, 563; policy of Jap. 



Govt., 564ff.; Jap. patriotism, 
565-6; Seward, 567; Shufeldt 
treaty, 568; and neutrality, 
569ff.; rights in China, 572ff.; 
580; French protectorate of R. 
C. Missions, 637; 651 

Miura, Viscount : in Korea, 503 

Mocha: 30 

MoUendorf, Herr von: Korea, 471; 
treaty with Russia, 481 

Monopoly: 352; telegraphs in 
China, 593 

Monocacy, U. S. S.: dispatched to 
Korea, 469 

Monroe Doctrine : 177 ; 636 

Monsoon: 34 

Morris, Robert: 5; 6; 8; 10 

Morrison, Dr. Robert: American 
support of, 64; 76; to Edmund 
Roberts, 131 ; 181 ; 550 

Morrison: voyage of to Japan, 246ff. 

Morse, H. B.: 689 

Morrison, S. E.: Maritime History 
of Mass., 684 

Most-favored-nation treatment: V; 
VI; 108ff.; and open door, 110; 
Muscat, 134; Gushing instruc- 
tions, 141; 145; Chinese grant, 
158; 195; 222; 237; 312; 314; 
353; 355; 376; basis of Am. 
policy, 407; 478; 680 

Muravieff, Gov.-Gen. Nicholas: 179; 
Japan, 255; 431 

Murphy, R. C: 226, 229 

Muscat: 30; Roberts to Sultan of, 
129; treaty with U. S., 133-4; 
261 

Nagasaki: first American visits, 32; 
243ff.; Phaeton incident, 245; 
265; 267; 352; 355; persecu- 
tions, 415; Shufeldt, 456-7 

Nanking: 209; 316; opening of, 318; 
See also Treaty of Nanking 

Napier (Lord) incident: 92 

Napoleonic wars: and China t'-ade, 
46; 256 

Naval demonstration, 158; 402; 
Seward's proposed joint, 413 

Newchwang opened: 320 

Newlands, Francis G.: Hawaii, 614 

New York: 6; merchants, 8; 17; 20; 
trade with Zanzibar, 30; list 
principal merchants, 137; Town- 
send Harris, 348-9 

Ningpo: 187, 211; Townsend Harris, 
348; 557 



INDEX 



719 



Non-Alienation Agreements: 603-4 

Nootka Sound: 42 

Norfolk: 6; 26 

Northwest Coast: 3; Ledyard, 5; 
Mass. trade, 9; general survey 
of trade, 37ff.; 70; 683; 
See also Fur Trade 

Nye, Gideon Jr. and Formosa: 285 

Occidental and Oriental Steamship 
Co.: 585 

O'Donnell, Capt. John: 8; 26; 28; 
683 

Okuma, Count : 528 

Olyphant, D. W. C: organizes firm, 
1828, 72; opium, 119; voyage of 
Morrison, 247-8; failure of firm, 
599 

Open Door Policy: v; and most- 
favored-nation clause, 110; 
Chinese choice, 158ff.; 183; Am. 
policy, 1858, 358; in 1861, 407; 
608; McKinley, 622 ; 631; 634ff.; 
England and, 639; Beresford, 
641 ; 643; Hay notes, 646-7; defi- 
nition of policy, 647-8; 677 

Opium: exportation from N. Y., 
20; Turkey, 30; 115-6; 117; in- 
fluence of trade on exchange, 
73; and specie, 93; 118; pro- 
posed legalization, 1836, 93; 
proposed destruction, 94; execu- 
tion of dealer. Canton, 95; sur- 
render, 96; Americans quit 
trade, 97; Caleb Cushing on, 
104; 105; .American share in t., 
115ff.; pledge, 122-3; Siam 
treaty, 1832, 133; N. Y. mer- 
chant to Webster, 135; instruc- 
tions to Cushing, 140; Treaty 
Wanghia, 168; King report, 
183; and tobacco, 185; 189; and 
Taiping, 207; 211; 300; 304; 
306; 320; legalization, 324-6; 
Siam, 351; HaiTison, 358; pro- 
hibited by Japan, 362; Korea, 
461; 521; 523; 542; 651; 669 

Oregon Territory: 39; 177 
See also N. W. Coast 

Osaka: 362; 402 

Pacific Ocean: 42; 175; commerce, 
182; 243; steam navigation, 253; 
Am. policy in, 262-3; Perry on 
control of, 273; 275; Seward's 
views, 408-9; Shufeldt, 462; 
trans. Pacific trade, 580; 608; 



Sandwich Islands, 609ff.; status 
quo in, 1898, 613 

Pacific Mail Steamship Co.: 584-5; 
scandal, 671 

Pallas: 8; 44 

Palmer, A. H.: Japan expedition, 
252-3 

Palmerston, Lord: instructions to 
Elliot, 162-3; 165; 175; 177; 
298; 345; 386 

Panama: 184; 253; canal, 645 

Parker, Daniel: 5; 7 

Parker, Com. Foxhall A.: opium 
smuggling, 126; Charge in 
China, 156 

Parker, Rev. Peter, M. D.: in 
Wash., 1841, 108; 136; Chinese 
sect'y, Cushing mission, 142; 
152; interpreter, 156; sect'y 
legation, 186; 190; 191; 229; 
visits Japan, 248; policy of re- 
viewed, 279ff. ; and Formosa, 
284ff.; 295; 297; 299; 328-9; 
357; 555; 557; 622 

Parkes, Sir Harry : 351 ; 392 ; arrives 
Japan, 401; policy, 402ff.; Con- 
vention of 1866, 402; and co- 
operation, 405; and Bingham, 
516; 518-9 

Paulet, Lord George: 609 

PauUin, C. 0.: 685 

.Passports: 515; 561; Japan, 566 

Pauncefote, Sir Julian: 519; 645 

Peacock, cruise of: 79 

Pearl Harbor: leased, 611 

Pehtang : 337 ; 340 ; ratifications, 342 

Pei-ho river: 136; McLane-Bowring 
exped., 230ff.; 233; 297; block- 
ade of, 300; Reed at, 312ff.; 336; 
343; river conservancy, 663 

Peking: Cushing's proposal, 147; 
Cushing waives right to go, 155; 
296; dip. residence, 300; Wardj 
334ff. ; capture, 343; telegraphs, 
592; legation guards, 654; siege, 
654; legation quarter, 663 

Pennsylvania: 6; 306 

Pembroke fired on: 398; claim, 399 

Pepper: 10; 11; review of trade, 31; 
Friendship plundered, 130 

Perkins, T. H.: 18; 20; 32; 40; 71; 
243; 579 

Perry, Com. M. C: acquisition of 
territory, VI; 131; 181-2; and 
coal, 185; 192; 201; Taipings, 
215; on intervention in China, 
233; policy in Japan and Paci- 



720 



INDEX 



fie, 260ff.; instructions, 262; 
spirit of, 269; Far Eastern 
policy, 270ff.; 357; 607; 622 

Pescaderoes : 501 

Philadelphia: 6; 10; 17; 115; Syndi- 
cate, 599 

Philippines: retention of, VII; 177; 
291; 450; and China, 603; and 
annexation of Hawaii, 614; re- 
bellion, 617-9; 620ff.; debate on, 
628ff.; 679 

Pierce, Pres. Franklin: 184; 206; 
Taipings, 212; 222; on protec- 
tion of Am. citizens, 232; 238; 
peaceful policy, Japan, 267; on 
Lew Chews, 273; 277; 283; 290; 
review of policy, 292-3; Harris 
to, 349; 
See also Marcy 

Pierce, H. H. D.: on consular re- 
form, 671 

Pirates: 189; 376 

Polk, Pres. James K.: 253 

Putiatin, Count: 275; 31 Iff.; 354; 
431 

Potomac, U. S. Frigate: 31 

Port Arthur: Japan captures, 500; 
502; 503; 599; 604 

Port Hamilton : British occupy, 480 ; 
retire, 481 ; offered to U. S., 616 

Port Lazareff: 480 

Portman, A. L. C: 391; Conven- 
tion of 1866, 401ff.; railways, 
593-4 

Portugal: policy at Macao, 54; 
towards Americans, 80ff.; 345 

Pratt, E. Spencer: 618 

Pratt, Zedoc: Japan, 249 

Protection, legislative: 8; 27; 517 

Providence: 6; 10; 683 

Pruyn, Robert H. : 391 ; review of 
policy, 397ff . ; war-steamers, 
397; 414; mediation, 491 

Pumpelly, Raphael: 382; 587 

Quallah Battoo: 31; 130; 132 

Railroads: 378; Burlingame treaty, 
381; Chemulpo-Seoul, 504; 511; 
first in Japan, 593-4; in China, 
594-9; Kaiping Railway Co., 
598; Tientsin-Taku, 599; 
Americans seek concessions, 
601-2 ; Hankow-Peking, 601 ; 
Hankow-Canton, 602; 604 

Randall, Thomas: 8; report to 
Hamilton, 62; 684 



Reed, William B.: 192; 236; 290-1; 
appointment and instructions, 
302ff.; review of policy, 311ff.; 
settlement of claims, 328-9; on 
missionaries, 556 

Religious toleration: 180; 244; 263; 

312; 321; 353; 361; 381; 415; 

460; Korea, 520-1; 559-60; 573; 

See Missionaries and Treaties and 

Conventions 

Republican party: 535; 541; 542; 
543; 624; 630 

Residence, rights of: China, 168; 
194ff.; 381; Japan, 268-9; Naga- 
saki, 353; Shimoda, Hakodate, 
355 ; 360 ; 393 ; rights waived, 396 

Rizal, Dr. Jose: 617 . 

Rhode Island: 6; 
See Providence 

Roberts, Edmund: treaty with 
Muscat, 30; review of mission, 
127ff.; death, 134; and Japan, 
245; 254; Siam treaty, 350; 618; 
684 

Roberts, Rev. Issachar J.: 208; 327; 
at Nanking, 564 

Robertson, J. Barr, address: 510 

Rockhill, W. W.: 341; 483; 616; 
sketch, 634; 642; 660ff.; 666 

Rover, wreck of: 411; 440 

Russell and Company: 34j forma- 
tion, 1818, 71; 97; 123; J. M. 
Forbes, 135-6; at Shanghai, 195; 
197; 212; Bankok, 352; China 
merchants, 494; failure of, 579; 
584; 585; 588; railways, 598-9 

Russell, Sturgis and Company: 34 

Russia: Northwest coast trade, 38; 
178; 201; Taipings, 215; 242; 
and Japan before 1853, 254; 
Perry, 275; 296; 298; 300; 306; 
345'; 356; Harris on R. policy, 
357 ; 428 ; and Tsushima, 430-1 ; 
Japan feared, 442; 451; and 
Korea, 472; treaty of 1884 
480-1; 483; 490; Maria Luz, 
491; Sino-Jap. War, 501ff.; re- 
cession of Liaotung Peninsula, 
503; in Korea, 504; on treaty 
revision, 521; Tani, 527; con- 
ciliation of China, 601 ; Han- 
kow-Peking railroad, 601 ; 
sphere of influence, 604 ; entente 
with Ger. and France, 635; rela- 
tions to U. S. and China, 635-6; 
agreement with Eng., 643; bad 
faith, 655 



INDEX 



721 



"Sailing letters": 584 

Sailors, see Crew 

Sakhalin: 243; 254; Russia-Japan, 
354 ; 357 ; 428 ; negotiations, 431 

Salem: 6; trade with Zanzibar, 30; 
merchants' memorial to Con- 
gress, 103; 115; list principal 
merchants, 137 

Sandalwood trade: 41 

Sandwich Islands, see Hawaiian 
Islands 

San Francisco: 180; 535; 538 

Sargent, Senator A. A.: letter from 
Shufeldt, 462-3; Chinese immi- 
gration, 542; 545 

Satsuma Rebellion: 516 

Scott Act: 547 

Sea-letter: 7 

Seal-skins : trade, how conducted, 37 

Seoul: 467; attack on Jap. legation, 
1882 ; 468 ; 469 ; foreigners asked 
to withdraw, 484; Tong-haks, 
486; 503 

Seward, Geo. F.: 375; Burlingame 
to, 377-8; commissioned to 
make Korean treaty, 419-20; 
542 ; railways, 595-7 ; published 

/ corres., 687 
/Seward, William H.: open door, v; 
approves Burlingame policy, 
377; and Japan, 392; 401; re- 
view of Far Eastern policy, 
407ff.; joint naval demonstra- 
tion, 413; Tsushima, 430; Sak- 
halin, 431-2; 450; Treaty of 
1868, 539-41; missionaries, 567; 
\ spoils system and China, 586; 
608; 673; 676 

Seybert, Adam: 3 

Seymour, Admiral Sir E. H.: relief 
of Peking, 654 

Shanghai: Am. trade with, 180; 
consulate, 187; lawless, 188; 
land question, municipal code, 
194ff.; Montauk, 197; import- 
ance to U. S., 204; fall of, 1853, 
211; 216; free port, 220ff.; In- 
spectorate Maritime Customs, 
226ff.; 327; 342; 510; Steam 
Navigation Co. organized, 584; 
internat'l settlement, 589; 590; 
telegraph, 592; railways, 594-7; 
river conservancy, 667; consu- 
late, 670 

Shantung: 320; 604 

Shaw, Major Samuel: 7; owner of 
Massachusetts, 13; at Batavia, 



\ 



32; reports, as consul, 62; 88; 
Journals, 683 

Shellaber, John: U. S. Con., Batavia, 
and treaties, 130; and Japan 
mission, 244-5 

Sherman, John: to Allen, defining 
policy, 506 

Shimoda: opened, 268; no coal, 269; 
Harris arrives, 352; U. S. con- 
_ sulate, 354ff. 

Shimoneseki, Straits of: Pembroke, 
398; Wyoming fights, 399; joint 
naval expedition, 400; 401; 414; 
treaty of, 502ff. 

Ship-building: 13; 179; Japan-U. S. 
treaty, 1858, 361 

Ship-masters: character of Ameri- 
cans, 16 

Ship-owners: 13; 16; profits, 179-80 

Shogun: William II of Holland to. 
256; 270; 347; 356; 363; 364; 
393; retires in favor of Mikado, 
404; 412; and Korea, 433; 512 

Shufeldt, Com. Robert W.: 433; 
450ff.; and Korea, 455ff.; or- 
dered to China, 458; treaty ne- 
gotiations, 458ff.; Blaine's in- 
structions, 461 : letter to Sar- 
gent, 462-3; 467; 545; 587; 616; 
papers, 688 

Siam: beginnings of trade with, 31: 
extraterritoriality, 88 ; British 
treaty, 1826, 129; Roberts visit, 
133; 261; Perry's opinion, 272; 
Townsend Harris, 349ff.; stops 
Chinese tribute, 429 ; 
See also Treaties and Conven- 
tions 

Siberia: Russian aggression, 179; 
and Japan, 427; 590; 
See also Trans-Siberian 

Silk: 4; 17; Shanghai, 180; transfer 
of trade to Japan, 582 

Sill, J. M. B.: good offices in Korea, 
495-6; reproved by Gresham, 
505 ; neutrality proclamation, 
571-2 

Silver, see Specie 

Singapore: 32; 181 

Sino-Japanese War: VI; events pre- 
ceding, 485-7; 496ff.; 530; 546; 
549; 571; Am. trade after, 582; 
599 

Skins, see Furs 

Slaves: 9; 

See also Coolie trade 

Smith, Thomas H.: 18; 72 



722 



INDEX 



Smuggling: at Canton, 59; opium 
clippers, armed, 127; Webster 
to Gushing, 138; 165; opium, 
211; Shanghai, 1854, 226; 
opium, 326; 510; 524; 669 

Smyrna: trade with Mocha, 30; 
opium, 115-6 

Snow, Peter W., consul at Canton: 
strikes flag, 95; 96ff.; 106; re- 
ports on opium, 124 

Snow, Samuel: 63; 71 

South America: 3 

Sovereignty, Chinese : Shanghai, 
203; 219; Marcy, 223; Burlin- 
game treaty, 382; 384 

Soyeshima: mission to Peking, 441; 
455 

Spain: early policy at Manila, 34; 
54; 345; Filipino rebellion, 
617ff.; peace negotiations with 
U. S., 620 

Spanish-American War: 615ff.; 
peace terms, 620 

Spanish dollars, see Specie 

Specie: 20; drained from U. S., 20; 
Randall report, 63; 72; drained 
from China, 93; and opium, 118; 
payment of duties, 217; Ja- 
pan, 269; drained from Japan, 
395 

Spheres of influence : 603ff. 

Spices: 10 
See also Sumatra, Pepper 

States, voyage of: 34 

Steam navigation: 183; and open- 
ing of Japan, 253 ; 256 ; 275 ; and 
Formosa, 287; 356; Seward, 409; 
Chinese coasting trade, 583; 
Sandwich Is., 610 

Stephenson, Sir McDonald: 595 

Straits of Anjier: 33 

Sumatra: 3; 10; 11; 130; 272 

Summer Palace: 343 

Supercargo: Shaw, 7; commissions, 
17; 70 

Surat: 2-7 

Swatow: opened, 320; 494; coolie 
trade, 536 

Swift, John T.: 542; minister to 
Japan, 549-50; Japanese immi- 
gration, 550 

Taiping Rebellion: 175; 182; 189; 
205 ; review of, 207flf . ; 277 ; sup- 
pression of, 369ff . ; 375 ; 509 ; and 
missionaries, 564 ; 587 ; 594 

Tai-wen-Kun: 434; 466ff.; 482; 483 



Takezoye: 476-7; coup d'etat of 
Dec, 1884, 478-9 

Taku Forts: attack on, 313; 333; 
337; battle, 339; 342; request 
for mediation, 490 ; railway, 599 ; 
Boxer insurrection, 654; 663 

Tani Memorial: 626-7; 641 

Tariff, revision of: China, 322ff.; 
Japan, 362; Japan reduces, 400; 
Convention of 1866, 403ff.; 
China, 511; Japan and tariff au- 
tonomy, 513; Jap. proposed 
tariff, 1879, 520; proposals in 
1886, 526; Chinese tariff, 1900, 
660-1 ; 
— U. S.: act of 1789, 8; of 1816, 
27, 69 

Tattnall, Com. Josiah: 338£f.; con- 
duct approved, 343 

Tea: 4; tariff on, 8; continental 
trade declines, 56; re-exporta- 
tion to Europe, 57; 121; Shang- 
hai, 180; transfer of trade to 
Japan, 582; 
— price of: 8; speculation, 17; 
21 ; first cargoes, 44 ; and clipper 
ships, 179 

Telegraphs : 378 ; Burlingame treaty, 
381; Seward, Alaska, 409; 
Chinese monopoly in Korea, 
484; 511; trans-Pacific, 590-1; 
Great Northern Teleg. Co., 
59 Iff.; Woosung-Shanghai, 592; 
Fukien-Formosa, 592; China- 
Japan, 593; 620 

Terranova case: 85; account of, 87; 
91; and opium, 121; 164 

Tibet: 428 

Ticonderoga, cruise of: 456 

Tientsin: 210; 313; opened, 343; 
364; massacre, 452; 583; settle- 
ment, 589; telegraphs, 592; con- 
cession-hunters, 597 ; railway, 
599; Chinkiang railroad, 602; 
Boxers, 654-5; river conserv- 
ancy, 663; 
See also Treaty of 

Times (London) : 312; 524 

Tobacco: 185 

Tokio: Yokohama railway, 594 

Tokugawa: opposition to, 363; 393 

Tonk-hak Society: 486 

Trade, review of: 3ff.; early trade 
compared, 27; Zanzibar, 30; 
Sumatra, 31 ; Siam, 31 ; Batavia, 
31; Manila, 32; Canton trade 
before 1812, 45; 54; survey of 



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